A Cardiologist On Leading from the Heart with Dr Jonathan Fisher
Welcome back to the We Are Human Leaders podcast. I’m Alexis Zahner and together with Co-Host Sally Clarke Today we’re speaking with Dr Jonathan Fisher about how we create space for the heart in Leadership.
Dr Fisher is a Mindful Cardiologist. He’s a Harvard trained physician, Clinical-Cardiologist and Mindfulness meditation teacher with the lived experience of surviving burnout, Dr Fisher has rediscovered his joy at work the hard way.
With over 20 years of clinical experience, Dr Fisher is now committed to ending workplace burnout and optimizing peak performance in healthcare and the corporate world.
In this candid conversation, Dr Fisher shares with us his heart breaking journey through burnout and recovery, back to finding purpose and joy in his life and work. We explore what it means to lead from the heart, and how important how heart is mentally, emotionally and spiritually in our lives.
Dr Fisher shares his personal journey through understanding and regulating emotions, and how engaging with and creating space for our emotions is the key to heart health. He also shares key insights from his upcoming book “Just one Heart: A Cardiologist practical guide to the mind-heart connection’
This conversation was so warm and loving we left feeling like we’d been all wrapped up in a big hug. We’re grateful to have you with us for this conversation, let’s dive in.
Dr. Jonathan Fisher’s mission is to help others train the mind and heal the heart. He is a Harvard-trained clinical cardiologist, mindfulness meditation teacher, and Clinician Leader for the Novant Health Office of Organizational Well-being and Resiliency. In that role he facilitates leadership training, communication workshops, as well as mindfulness, stress reduction, and peak performance retreats for 38,000 healthcare team members, providers, and leaders. Dr. Fisher also serves as a Medical Director for the Novant Health Cardio-Pulmonary-Oncology Rehabilitation & Wellness Program and helped introduce the first formal mindfulness training programs for patients, providers, team members, and leaders.
In 2020 he co-founded the Ending Clinician Burnout Global Community and organized the world’s first global summit dedicated to ending clinician burnout, with over a thousand participants from 43 countries, including interviews with 84 global experts in health and well-being including Arianna Huffington.
He has delivered keynotes and workshops on the art and science of well-being, stress mastery, ending burnout, developing heartful leaders, compassion, and mindfulness for teams and organizations globally including The American College of Lifestyle Medicine, IBM, Bank of America, IE Business School, among others.
He is currently working on his first book “Just One Heart: A cardiologist’s practical guide to the mind-heart connection” due for release Fall 2023.
Social Media:
LinkedIn: Jonathan Fisher, MD, FACC
Instagram: happyheartMD
Website: endingclinicianburnout.com, www.happyheartMD.com YouTube: happy heart MD
For accessible access, view the podcast with closed captions below and access the full conversation transcript.
Episode Transcript:
Spk0 Alexis Zahner Spk1 Dr Jonathan Fisher Spk2 Sally Clarke
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Welcome back to the We are Human Leaders podcast. I'm Alexis Zahner and together with my co host Sally Clark today we're speaking with Dr Jonathan Fisher about how we create space for the heart in leadership. Dr fisher is a mindful cardiologist, he's a Harvard trained physician, clinical cardiologist and mindfulness meditation teacher. But the lived experience of surviving burnout. Dr fisher has rediscovered the joy of work the hard way With over 20 years of clinical experience. Dr Fisher is now committed to ending workplace burnout and optimizing peak performance in healthcare and in the corporate world. In this candid conversation, Dr Fisher shares with us his heartbreaking journey through burnout and recovery back to finding purpose and joy in his life and his work. We explore what it means to lead from the heart and how important the heart is mentally, emotionally and spiritually in our lives. Dr fisher shares his personal journey through understanding and regulating emotions and how engaging with and creating space for our emotions is the key to heart health. He also shares key insights from his upcoming book. Just one heart a cardiologist, practical guide to mind heart connection. This conversation was so warm and loving. We left feeling like we've been all wrapped up in a big hug. We're so grateful to have you with us for this conversation now let's dive in. Welcome to we are human leaders. Jonathan is an absolute pleasure to have you here with us today and we'd love to start with learning a little bit more around your personal journey and how you've come to do the important work that you're currently doing.
[00:02:34] spk_1: Thank you so much sally and Alexis. What a pleasure I've loved listening to your podcast, your voices, your thoughts, your insights have always made my drive to work a lot more fun. So thanks for inviting me. And in terms of how I got here today, I am the younger of seven Children and study and service were very important in my family growing up in New Jersey and my father was the town doctor. He used to carry one of those old leather bags getting the station wagon and drive to people's houses back when doctors still did that and the older siblings went on house calls with him and then the rest of us heard about the stories and one by one, we fell in love with this idea of may Taking a life out of helping others heal. And so seven Children became seven doctors like my father and we all have a passion for science. My mother was a physicist, a nuclear physicist before. It was cool for women to do that in the 1940s and 1950s in America. So really she was a pioneer and that's how I got started in this field. But what I didn't realize is that the pursuit of Science and academic rigor and excellence was not going to help me be a healer of hearts. I could spend the next 20 years going through medical school trying to be the top of my class and competing to get into a difficult residency in the Harvard Medical School system, which I did. And I didn't realize that my own emotional heart was missing from the equation. And it only became clear to me at times when I was either anxious at the bed of somebody who was either living or dying and I realized that I had no control over my emotions and there was a profound fear that was coming up. And it was layered on top of my natural sensitivity as a child to other people's emotions, to whether I was being approved of living up to the family name, Winning the awards and accolades. And it was a very externally focused narrative happening in my own mind. And so because of these things and eventually after I had all these accolades, the one person who was my deepest emotional supporter, which was my sister Andrea at the age of 44, she was diagnosed with a brain tumor and we found out that it was inoperable. So this lovely, beautiful heart centered human being who was a doctor herself didn't have many years to live and I felt like the world was shaken from underneath me and I had to still go to work every day taking care of 2 to 3000 other people each year while my own heart was breaking. So That brings me into conversation with you today. That story goes back 15 years and we can dive as much or as little into the last 15 years which allowed me to heal my own heart so that I can be present for my patients and for my colleagues and for other leaders around the world who I speak with about health care and other subjects.
[00:05:21] spk_0: Well Jonathan, thank you so much for sharing that journey I think so often, you know, I'm grateful that you took the time to illuminate that personal journey for us and the disconnection you felt between your own emotional state and the work you do. And I imagine as a physician it can feel really challenging to sort of have to compartmentalize that if you will in the workplace every day. So I'm really grateful that you took the time to share that for me. I'm sure other physicians like yourself there's a lot going on underneath that we don't see when you show up every day to help us. So thank you for sharing that part of your journey with us.
[00:05:54] spk_1: Thank you. I'm happy to share. I think what you're doing here and what podcasts are able to do is share stories and we're so used to talking about data, whether it's around burnout or employee well being that leaders themselves can get caught up in metrics and numbers and calculations in the bottom line unless we remind ourselves the stories and the humans that we are ourselves. I think that we lose track of why we're here in the first place. So thanks for the feedback. Yeah, I'm
[00:06:21] spk_2: curious to hear more Jonathan. If we may about you, you mentioned this journey of healing your own heart and I have two questions. One is, I'm curious whether was there a moment or a kind of an awareness at one particular point that you realized that that was something that needed to take place. And then if you could maybe share us a little bit about that journey of healing your own heart,
[00:06:41] spk_1: I was at a low point after my sister had died and I was confused. I was newly married and my wife was not getting the best of me. She was really getting the worst with emotional outbursts. Then we had a young child on the way later to be the first of three and I wasn't the husband or the father that I wanted to be. And so it was in that context that I was oddly enough with a friend whose brother had committed suicide. And so the world of the mind and the heart had been crashing in. And we were sitting at the ceremony and she recommended a book to me and she said, you know, here's a book by a woman named pema chadron and it's called when things fall apart and many of your listeners and you know that you're familiar with this. And I read this book and it was like every word was speaking to me. There was a whole world of wisdom that I had never been exposed to and it touched my heart in deep ways. And there was a part in the middle of the book where Emma who was a buddhist nun but speaks in plain english and that's her power. She said something like it's only when we realized that there's nowhere to hide from our problems that we can begin to heal. That's when suffering begins to end, is when we stop running. And so the answer to the question is I realized that I had been running from my anxiety from what I later determined was depression rather than facing it head on. And I found lots of ways to avoid it sometimes an emotional outburst of anger, sometimes in, You know, scrolling, playing video games for hours shirking responsibilities. And so that led me on a path of curiosity and I decided to take the same proactive approach that I did to my medical education, to this whole new education. I realized that I had been missing for 25, 30 years, which was what does the human spirit need to feel full and rich and alive and connected? And that led me to the world of positive psychology which didn't learn. I studied psychiatry in medical school and a little psychology. And lo and behold, there's a whole field of human endeavor going back really, you know, 50 60 years in the west, but thousands of years, you know, to the ancient traditions, to the vedic, to the Yogis and buddhist philosophers and lots of Eastern traditions. It's really this question about what does it mean to live a good life and a full life even amidst life's catastrophes which I had faced. And so I studied everything I could read martin Seligman and many of the modern authors and one of them mentioned one of the practices was meditation and mindfulness and I gave that a try and I hated it. It was very challenging, but I stuck with it for a few weeks and I, for me personally, I noticed that one thing changed and that's my anxiety that was really like a friend on my back, my whole life just started to lift. And it was because I could begin to see that I was not the thoughts that were arising in my own mind and that insight, someone could have told me that, but it wasn't the same as doing the hard work of sitting still, which was nearly impossible. I had been on the go for years. And so for me that was the beginning of the process. And that led me to explore and go on a retreat and you know, afraid what people would think about me at this yoga retreat in massachusetts, leaving my wife, leaving my Children for days at a time. Knowing that I was desperate, I was desperate for answers. And I found them, I found them on the meditation cushion. I found them on the yoga mat. I found them in nature. I found them in sport And triathlon. And then I realized that I was seeking this deeper connection with myself. And as that happened, connection with those around me started to emerge and abbreviating now cutting the story even shorter as I was on this journey myself. It was in 2012 in my hospital. I figured the best way to learn something is to begin to teach it to other people. And I said, Well, there's a tradition in medicine called grand rounds where all the doctors come together and we talk about a challenging case or a difficult subject. And I said, what if I shared what I'm learning about this thing called mindfulness and meditation, but specifically as it relates to the human heart because no one had described that before, There were about 50,000 hits on mindfulness on google. Then now it's 500 million. And so I put together the research and I gave a talk and people looked at me funny and they said, well good luck with that. And that was now, you know more than 10 years ago. And since then people are inviting me to talk about what is the science of the motions as they affect the heart? How does this practice and skill of mindfulness help us become more present, help leaders become more present, help patients hearts heal and doctors and nurses face trauma. And then more than that, how does that fit into the larger umbrella of the field of positive psychology? Which is the question of how do we live a good life mindfulness is but one of many tools. And then as it turns out I work as an employee in a health care system. I work among 38,000 team members and as I began to share my own story, others began to lean in and said, well you seem different, you seem less angry and less rushed and less frustrated and the system isn't changing at around you. There's something happening, what is it? And so I started sharing and I let a dozen mindfulness practices one year and then another dozen. And then eventually our chief well being officer who was one of the first dozen in the United States, really a pioneer in the field of healthcare, invited me to join him in his work and that was five years ago. And so I spent 60% of my time taking care of patients in the hospital and emergency room intensive care unit in the clinic and 40% thinking about the big challenges of how do we make, 38,000 people feel loved and supported and part of a family of brothers and sisters so that we can do the work of
[00:12:14] spk_2: caring, incredible, thank you so much for sharing this, so many things that I want to dig deeper on, but having both with sort of the practical, ongoing sort of work of being with people and working on that very focused journey of healing for them individually, while also being able to look at the more sort of umbrella, almost meta sort of level of how are we as a group of physicians, as a group of healthcare professionals behaving and how retreating ourselves and as a result, how we're treating others, I think is a really a lovely kind of parallel that you have going there. I know one of the questions I heard you say things like, you know, the healing, the human spirit and this journey almost as a little bit of an outlier. I'm wondering if that's been something that you sort of felt during this journey of being, you know, a fresh voice and if you're starting to see that this is actually becoming more, you mentioned that, you know, this change in hits on google even is this starting to become something more normalized in healthcare or are we still a long way from that?
[00:13:08] spk_1: Yes and yes, I'm embracing the fact that There are not many. If you look at the grand scheme, at least in the us, there's 950,000 physicians and there's a handful who are really introducing these practices into the office space and into the hospital ward and there's plenty of reasons why it's a challenge to do that. Most of them relate to the organizational structures and processes and governmental policies themselves, not to these beautiful individuals who have dedicated their lives to help other people. And so I'm fascinated by what happens to human empathy when it is placed in the midst of stress and I still am an outlier and yet at the same time as I posted today that I am always careful to just remember and be grateful for the many, many people who have come before and said there is a better way to hell. And you know, there's a book called healing organization. So this isn't just about healthcare, this is about every organization. And I'm very much heartened. I actually asked someone yesterday, I said he was a ceo of a big health care company who developed testing for Covid and I said, do you think the world of business is really changing? Do you think Covid has really brought people to a place where they're ready to do work differently, looking after the whole person? Or do you think this is just something that we're noticing on websites like linkedin, but in the real world that's not happening. And I think that's a little bit of what you're asking to, how much of this is still fringe. My gut sense is that humans desire connection and we have not been getting it, we haven't gotten it for the last three years, but we haven't gotten it for the law last 150 years since the Industrial Revolution. It's been a downhill slide with the break up of a civic community, with the religious life, the breakup of the family. And so this has an impact on our physical health, which I see 80 to 90% of all of my heart patients, they're not struggling for a lack of medical care, they're struggling for a lack of human care, I'm hoping. And this is one of my roles is simply to tell stories from the heart that connect with other people's hearts. So that systems begin to change and to help others become changemakers themselves. Thank
[00:15:12] spk_0: you Jonathan. And it is fascinating when we look at you mentioned sort of this post industrial revolution, it does feel, especially in Western cultures, sort of the rise of individualism. We're sort of shifting away from that collective being the belonging as part of a community and certainly even down to to, you know, for many of us now who work remotely, there's even less interaction on a day to day level with other human beings and that does. I'm sure in time will find have a real, perhaps physiological impact on our hearts, our minds, you know, the physical and mental health and I know your work really, Jonathan looks at this integration of optimal human health and what I feel is like the art and joyful and the high heartful part of living, what it means to actually be a human being in our day to day. Can you help us explain a little more perhaps in maybe a practical sense for folks what the intersection and the interaction is of this sort of science mind, if you will, and maybe the art of what it is to be a human being. I
[00:16:14] spk_1: love that question, I love that as being the central question of my life and the people that gravitate to me and I to them, it seems to be that we're all asking the same question, which is, can we live in a way that embraces both the scientific and the evidence base, but also, you know, for lack of a better word, the spiritual and the art center without rejecting it, because, you know, we say that, well, this doesn't exist in science right now, for example, on a practical level, you know, for the audience you asked, how do we begin to think about this? I find it helpful to first look at the scientific evidence, where are we today in terms of how the brain, how the mind speaks to the heart. And one aspect of the mind or our thoughts and the other our emotions and then we have memories and beliefs and predictions and worries. I mean the mind is an amazing thing, but to simplify if you look at us as social animals, we really have evolved with two core responses, which is to either approach resources in the form of other people mates food. Nowadays it's money and success and to position ourselves for more and more resources. That's a core imperative. On the other hand, it's to avoid risk, threat and danger. And so if you sift out the thousands of human emotions and now there's debate as to whether there's six basic emotions or 10 depending on his work, you look at, they all serve a basic purpose which is to provide us with information about how to live day to day. The question that interests me now is where does wisdom come in? You know, wisdom is this profoundly human trait that we'd love to see in our leaders. So for me, wisdom is exactly the answer to the question you're asking sally, which is how do we navigate the workings of the mind with these poles of the heart? The emotional heart. And I see there is being three avenues, we have events in the mind themselves, right? the thought comes up and thoughts don't happen. They don't originate from my beating heart. I know that and yet at the same time, if I have a thought that I'm going to make a mistake, let's say with someone's care, that may lead to a fear, a fear that this person will be harmed by me. And then that fear leads to a cascade of events of neurochemical events along the sympathetic nervous system and also some hormones and their job. The way we've evolved is so that that readies my heart for action, that's all fine. But I as we know, most of us have trouble shutting off that response. And so instead of a one time stress response, it's really this phenomena, this epidemic of chronic repetitive, unmitigated stress. We've lost our off switch that other animals have. And that's why we see the diseases that we have. I mentioned several pathways. So we have the brain pathway and then we have the behavior pathway which is what happens when I'm under stress and I have this cortisol surge and adrenaline surge. My attention narrows and it focuses so I lose track of a broader repertoire of wise choices. So my literally my vision narrows my hearing, narrow the bandwidth narrows my facial expressions diminished so that I can't communicate, my ability to tune into your facial expressions diminishes and then sort of the end result of this is inside my heart, there's a constriction, there's a contraction of blood vessels, a tendency towards clotting of the blood and other factors. And this is why if there's stress at work, which is something we're all working to reduce. We see a higher risk of heart attacks and heart disease at tremendous cost. So it's fascinating to be in this space. Many of the answers don't lie in traditional Western teaching, whether it's in the business world or in the medical world. We have to look look at ancient philosophies, we have to look at the ancient Greeks, we have to look at the stoics, we have to look at wisdom traditions from around the world for some of these answers until we can embed them in, I believe more narrow dualistic Western thinking,
[00:20:01] spk_2: that's a really beautiful point. I think Jonathan is speaking to the power of wisdom and I think a lot of us have grown up in a very sort of intellectual science driven environment and yet I find the more data that we see around the validating how important these more spiritual practices are, or the importance of for example, mindfulness at work and how it actually does have an incredibly meaningful impact on all levels that it just feels like, that we're coming closer to truth, we're coming close to wisdom in that process. And I think, you know, the work of Dr Gabor mate as well recently to really sort of highlights, it's almost broaden the perspective on what it means to be a physician and how we think about health and how narrow the that can be. Often in Western society. We were so focused in on on sort of singularities, having the courage and as you mentioned that the courage and energy to be able to zoom out really serves us, I think as leaders, I can imagine as physicians and certainly as human beings seeking to connect. Yeah,
[00:20:58] spk_1: Dr martin has been an inspiration for me as well. He's written many books and one book that may be interesting if anyone's been tracking the conversation, so as far as it's when the body says no, when the body says no and for me the lesson that I learned there and this was helpful for so many of my heart patients is that if we lose the ability to speak authentically and even before that to become aware of what our deepest needs are and what our desires are and learn to communicate that in an assertive, confident, unapologetic way, which many of us are never taught to do. The stress of saying yes when we mean no is internalized and causes many of the health problems that we just discussed. So this is part of the answer Alexis to, you know, on the one hand, we have the science of what's happening in the body, but on the other hand, we have these more sort of fluffy concepts of emotional flexibility and emotional agility and emotional intelligence, which you know, for me it's not fluffy at all. You know, when I see someone acting out in rage or hostility and they're cutting me off on the highway. My first thought is I know where the this is leading beyond the traffic accident, it's leading to a coronary accident or some other physical health accident. So I strongly believe that the way forward for human health and by extension organizational health is to take a holistic approach, looking at the mind, the body and the spirit or whatever else you want to call that human need for a sense of deep purpose, meaning and belonging.
[00:22:23] spk_2: Beautiful. I'm curious to sort of switch gears a little bit too, You're thinking of mindfulness in the workplace. I'm curious when you interact with these, you know, thousands of physicians that you instruct on mindfulness, Can you give a practical example that you might share with them as to what that actually means on the work floor for them, what that looks like as a physician working in a
[00:22:44] spk_1: hospital. Absolutely. And just to not assume that every listener of yours, they probably do but knows what mindfulness is. There are so many definitions that are out there and often people get hung up and there can get deep arguments and among philosophers and buddhist scholars and say that's not how you define it. I always like to remember that we're talking about an english word, we're speaking in a particular language and we're using a specific word and it has the meaning that we agree upon, that we like to trace it back to this ancient pali or indian word mindfulness, which has something to do with remembering if you look at the original roots and what mindfulness very simply is is paying attention to this present moment on purpose without judgment, so without judging and pushing away and rejecting or its awareness with full acceptance is what it is as it's been described. And so that being the practice, you know, I think about the implementation of mindfulness at least in my world at three levels. I think about it with colleagues as you mentioned, I think about it with my patients for its healing benefits and I think about it for leaders and fortunately I've been able to produce initiatives at all three levels and frankly the answer to the question is like anything else, how you teach something or how you share something depends on the person you're speaking with, what's their unique background, What are their individual pain points and desires. And I can tell you that early attempts at corporate well being did a great disservice to this beautiful tool of mindfulness because it was often used as a panacea and some people would say weaponized against employees as a way of saying that this stress that you're feeling, this is not our responsibility, this is something that you should take up a course called mindfulness based stress reduction and go fix yourself while we continue to run your spirit into the ground. And so I'm happy to report that. Over the last few years, many of us have been speaking quite vocally against that trend, saying that this tool should not be thrown out just because the messaging was bad. We have to be sensitive to why people are bristling and it's very clear people are bristling because they're suffering and they don't want to be told to work on themselves and you and I both know that when we are struggling some of the work is the environment that some of the work is internal. And so again it's not a dualistic approach there. So to get very practical for my patients, I get a sense during each visit to what degree their medical condition has an underlying cause relating to challenging emotions that are unresolved. And I have fortunately I'm certified and I'm comfortable sharing mindfulness and leading various practices. I'm not a psychiatrist, I'm not a psychologist, I don't pretend to be one and yet I can get people in that direction if they need it. So what I'll do is I'll invite someone, I'll say would you like to learn about a practice that's been around 3000 years that's safe and effective and that you can take home with you. And most people actually everyone says yeah please. And so I'll take one minute out of the 15 minute standard doctor's visit at the end. Usually it's actually five minutes because I get into the practice myself and I love it and we sit and I guide them through whatever I think they're needing in that moment, whether it's a heart based practice or something about being awareness of their judgments, the judging mind depending on what I sense now as my non heart doctor hat is causing their feelings of disconnection with the world around them. In terms of my colleagues, I gave an example of that doctors and scientists and bankers, whoever like to think very technically. So that's where I like to bring out the technical models, the technical language. I flash a little bit of what we talked about before, the neuroscience of it, just for fun to show that I'm not making this up. And then once I have their curiosity and I say, you know, would you like to experience less internal suffering and burn out even before the system changes so that you will then be in a great position to be the change maker. Because right now it sounds from all your frustration, hostility and anger at this system. I don't say this, but there's a lot of victimizing ourselves and blaming the system and in my own experience, I was not a good change maker until I was able to regulate myself despite the work environment that I was in and usually people say yeah, I'd like more of that. And so I lied half day retreats four hours introduction to mindfulness and I lead monthly sessions on positive psychology and mindfulness for thousands of employees, whoever wants to come and then I do it, you have to start where you live. So in my own office two weeks ago my secretary and the staff. All right dr fisher, when is our next office mindfulness session? Because they know they see me practicing it and sometimes if I'm rushing through the day they'll say, hey dr fisher, you know ground yourself. I have nurses in the hospital. They say dr fisher. I know this is a busy one. We're calling you a lot and you just notice the sensations of your feet on the floor like you taught us. And then the lastly it comes to the leadership and we know that you know, being a leader in this century requires many skills. Many characteristics, not just 11 of them is wisdom. One of them is presence. Empathy is a big one. And so as it turns out, mindfulness allows us to tap into all of those skills that's partly why it's so useful. It's like a swiss army knife. And for those people who want to take it home with them, it doesn't have to be a pursuit of a skill or a leadership strength. It can simply be a spiritual practice, a search for in sentence and a greater connection with this one precious life however you want to approach it, it's there for you. And so with leaders. I speak about the bottom line and I speak about return on investment and I speak about employee retention and engagement and turnover and attraction and it all plays a role. And the best leaders that I know are those with certain characteristics intentionality, a deep presence at com or equanimity and openness to new ideas and a positive forward thinking mindset. And so all of these for me, if you wanted to boil it down to a simple practice it's learning to be present, learning to notice our impulses and our judgments and to just sort of turn that dial down so we can be fully with whoever is around us being open to what their needs are and being a true servant Jonathan.
[00:28:54] spk_0: There's so much we do not even have enough time to dive into everything that you've just mentioned. This could be a three hour conversation but I wanted to start with firstly just acknowledging and saying thank you as a medical doctor prescribing mindfulness or supporting patients through a mindfulness practice. Because I certainly know in my personal history and experience and through periods of my life where I've had deep grief and personal things affecting my mental emotional spiritual state. And often you know I have I'm sure presented a G. P. For things like chest pain or things like headaches and I still recall and when I was writing my thesis as the end part of my university degree, getting just insane headaches for months on end. And I went to a G. P. S. The GP referred me to an optometrist and at the time I was prescribed reading glasses and it's so clear to me now that my problem was stressed. My problem was just a deep uncomfortable Italy in my emotions and my capacity as you know a 21 year old to manage my workload at the time. But I didn't have the tools, I didn't have the skills to recognize what I was experiencing. And so I was looking for all of these sort of external fixes if you will answer is purely in the scientific world, help me fix that problem. So I just wanted to take a moment to say thank you and acknowledge that. And in particular for folks, we did a conversation a little while ago with a woman named Diana chapman who spoke about this idea of body intelligence and it's something we so often forget as much as our emotions are there to signal for us that there's something deeper going on as well. Often our physical symptoms like headaches like back pain like stress or trying to tell us something as well. So I just wanted to take a moment and say thank you for acknowledging that. And the next thing I really wanted to speak about was again looking at this idea of our toxic work environment and I think so powerful that you're able to discern what message needs to be delivered, I guess to what party, if you will internally to an organization and certainly for sally and I that's the challenge we face very often in our work. How do we speak about heart centered work in a very metric and evidence driven way, So it lands for the right audience and we can get them to connect with the importance of this. And we talk a lot around burnout solutions. Burnout is something that's very pertinent in the media right now and for good reason we have a lot of people really suffering around the world right now and often our focus is on, as you mentioned, the individual, if we allow that person to to have a meditation break in the day or if we give them a gym membership for a yoga opportunity through the day that this will build their resilience and this resilience will buffer them against the toxic work environment that we've created. And you know, you've already alluded to this here around sort of where some of that focus needs to lie in terms of resolving things like burnout and what I'm hearing is do you feel that this is really an integrated approach, this isn't an individual problem that this is really an organizational issue and we need to be looking at not even just what practices we implement into an organization, but almost structurally how we shift that to really address the human need first and foremost, is that sort of where you see solutions going in terms of addressing things like burnout and organizations.
[00:32:17] spk_1: So the way I would phrase it is I tend to default to a non dualistic choice. So if given two choices, I'll take the third And that for me, that's just because that tends to be where wisdom lies because any strict definitions of this or that are created by this mind, which is beautiful, but so faulty. Yes, absolutely. And I've heard people make numbers up like 90% of burnout is organizational and 10% as individual. This is all made up. It's all make believe the way that I approach it is again, as a medical doctor, I think about an organization is simply as a collection of living things, right? So an organization is only as healthy as each of its parts. So if you have a human body and there's a growth that somewhere in the body and it's taking nutrients away and distracting and there's a toxic area, let's say, a toxic leader in your arm or your leg, It's going to divert resources and bring the body down. It's the same in an organization. I think part of the challenge is the philosophy of business as it emerged relating to capitalism and Western society and I'm seeing some move now towards more conscious capitalism and conscious leadership. So that's part of this issue of burnout, which is, it's not to say that it's the organization of the individual because in that sense, we're all patrons of organizations and we has consumers have to decide for ourselves. Do we want the bottom line to just be dollars and cents or do we want there to be a human element in it? So that's a broader conversation. I would say the second one is around this idea of culture. So the challenge is, it's hard enough for me to create a culture inside myself that I feel good about a culture where I love myself, I feel good waking up every day inside this body. So now, how can we think about an organization with thousands of people who wake up and feel good about going into that culture every day? It's a huge challenge. The larger the organization is. And so we think about, you know, well the body is organized by organs by system. So we have to think about the smallest units in an organization, whether there, it's the work unit or the local office or whatever it is under the managers and take each one of those as a pilot project essentially. And using our new metric, not how much revenue can you generate? Sure. There'll be profit. Put that aside for a moment. How healthy a culture can you create? And that means when your employees come to work, Do you know the names of their Children when their Children are sick. Do you know enough to ask about them and to acknowledge that this may be causing stress on them having workarounds, lots of things like that. And so taking the work environment and thinking about it in a more broad roll. The short answer to your question is yes. The modern crisis of burnout has to do with organizations that have not scaled well, working on old models and old philosophies that need to evolve slightly and at the same time many individuals, whether it's this generation are the most recent ones. Many of us haven't gotten the training to know our ourselves and to regulate ourselves and to create a culture inside of ourselves where we love ourselves so deeply that it's not a constant fight internally that eventually becomes externalized and we become the toxic leader. So the work also has to be done within leaders themselves and they are individuals. So that wasn't a simple answer. I know, but this is I'm raising more questions back for you about, you know, when I hear this question is that the organization of the individual, I think that's helpful wordsmithing when you have individuals who are pushing back at you and we've all been there where someone says, I don't want to hear your training go fix this system and then come back to me with whatever it is you want to teach me about emotional intelligence, et cetera. And so what I'm offering is yes and we all can work on our own internal culture each day, we get up in the morning with our practices and so I see them as deeply intertwined the individual work and the organizational
[00:36:07] spk_2: work. I love that perspective, Jonathan and I think, you know there's the organizational component, the individual, but we also know, I think that there is another component to burnout which goes beyond organizations and we see this in the sheer fact that, you know, freelancers and people who work for themselves can burn out just as easily without necessarily being within an organizational structure. And I think to my mind, you know what you spoke to there as well, the sort of economic systems in which we operate, whether it's, you know, capitalism, there's a societal level to this as well that we've all a little bit drunk the kool aid on the centrality of work, to our identity, on this idea of extremely hard work being morally superior and looking down on rest as being lazy. I think these are these are things which are, you know, despite having worked in sort of burnout prevention for years now, I still know that I have got some of those internalized messages going on myself, so I have fully agree and I think human leaders fully agrees with your perspective of yes, we need this organizational structural change and we vehemently as individuals need to do what we need to to empower ourselves with fierce self compassion against burnout so that we can be the change makers, because as you said, if we're waiting for the systems to change, that's going to be a long way and we can take steps in the meantime. So thank you so much for sharing that message. I know your upcoming book and we are so excited to read. It is entitled Just One Heart. I'm curious if that title is a little bit inspired by the non dualistic perspective that you spoke to earlier, we'd just love to hear a little bit more about the key message that you will be bringing to leaders with your with your upcoming book.
[00:37:40] spk_1: Oh, thank you so much. I'm really excited and who knew how much hard work it was to write a book. And the fact that it's not a me that's writing the book, you know, my Greatest learning for those who are authors out there, is that really it's a group effort and I've been fortunate to speak with dozens of leaders around the world, including you, and really pick on the minds of experts who've done so much more than I have for their perspective. Again, trying to bring that wisdom in another experience. The title is just one heart, and it's a cardiologists guide to this mind heart connection and just one heart has several different meanings, you know, the most obvious, at least for me, is that our emotional heart on our physical heart are inseparable, You know, we work in a Western model where you go to a doctor just like Alexis said, and they're not paying attention to the emotional heart. They're paying attention to the physical one. I see that among cardiologists where you get a prescription and a pill and a test and an intervention before someone asks, you didn't your mother pass away last year, what's happening with that? And so just one heart. It's a discussion of the science of how our thoughts, feelings are connected with our heart and blood vessels. Just one heart also means that you and I have just one heart. So so much of our suffering is when we forget That we are connected. We are humans, we are human leaders, we are human beings or human daughters and sons. And so just one heart is that reminder that if we can simply practice deep empathy and concern for everyone, even those people that we may not agree with. There's a piece that comes from that a deep peace that comes when we are concerned for the well being of others. And then lastly just one heart is a reminder that you only get 100,000 heartbeats a day. And that means that if you live 80 years you have a finite number. So we have this just one heart and it's really a call to action that we all as efficiently as we can take a sense of urgency to nurture our emotional hearts with self compassion and kindness, but also by connecting with others with practicing empathy, compassion, loving kindness, and then most importantly, for my health care system, take care of your physical hearts, you know, by eating well and sleeping right things that so many people in the wellness industry have spoken so eloquently about. And yet I think that beneath all of that there is this heartbreak that many of us are feeling and we need to look at filling the holes in our heart so that we can live more fully,
[00:40:00] spk_0: so many potent messages with just three words Jonathan, there's so much power in that statement, just one heart. And I just wanted to reflect for one moment before we move on on the power of what you said around the interconnectedness of all of us around just one heart. And I think that there's so much suffering in the world right now, because the other one another. And I think this message is just so powerful. So I just wanted to take a moment to pause on that. And for me personally, I can say when I stop viewing those around me as separate from myself, your empathy, your compassion becomes almost an infinite vessel and infinite capacity to love one another. And we had a conversation just over the weekend at a retreat that we were hosting where we were asked the question if the L word should be shared at work and the L word being love. and we said, absolutely, why would we compartmentalized love as being not relevant, not important and not just utterly powerful in the workplace and how we show up and how we care for our colleagues as well. So thank you so much for sharing that message, Jonathan. We are so excited to dive into your book once it's released and I wonder if you can leave us just with a parting message for our the leaders listening to our podcast. Now, Jonathan, where do you feel is a place that an individual who's perhaps new to this work could begin to create a healthier and more heartful environment?
[00:41:29] spk_1: Well, thank you for your words and I love it when friends like you pause and remind me to pause because that's which, you know, I have to be reminded all the time. And just to pause on that particular note that we have this reservoir of empathy and compassion and unfortunately many people can live their whole life and not realize that it's just underneath the surface. And so the hope is that, you know, through the work that you're doing, we are human leaders, that you will help people take that pause and recognize that yes, leadership can be incredibly challenging. And it becomes so much easier when we simply simply be human, be the humans that we are and the core elements have to do in my opinion with these heart based characteristics and qualities, many of which I'm going to be speaking about in the book if I had a place to start, you know, there's really three steps when I think about if I had to do this again and it goes back to that quote that I read from premature Children, which is you know, suffering starts to ease when we stop pretending like we can hide from it and rejecting and pushing things away. So leaders are struggling from burn out there, struggling disconnection from their workers, there's resentment, there is confusion and really leaders become more and more isolated the higher they move up typically unless they can find a way to stay connected. So the first is to have the courage to be honest with yourself, where you are right now and I say courage because they can bring up some shame if we say, you know, I'm not happy, my life is out of balance right now. I'm not doing a quote, good job. And so this practice of just accepting where we are with a sense of love and care and remembrance of what we were like when we were Children. You know what if I was talking to a small child who was having the same struggles, would I beat them up with this negative inter narrative or what I speak with kindness. So that would be the first step I would encourage someone to do have the courage to simply accept things as they are and notice that voice of judgment and realize that you have a choice whether to follow that voice and to give it credence or not. The second I would say, is to learn a few simple skills to help regulate your thinking patterns and to realize that you're not destined just because thoughts happen in your you don't have to live with the same thoughts the rest of your life because you were programmed that way. So whether it's the practice of mindfulness or yoga or being in nature, it's simply this separation of our identity with this secretions in our minds and learning how to balance. But I'll call challenging emotions whether it's fear, anxiety, even depression and there's many steps to do that. But the first is to remember that every emotional state is workable, There's always a way forward and it may not be as quick and as efficient as some leaders would like it to be. But that's why the work is so rewarding because it takes time. And so it's the second piece is that balancing And then the third piece is once we've really sat in that acceptance and that self compassion with whatever challenge we're facing. Working with this balancing the thoughts in our mind which may be distorted. Working with the emotions in our heart which we forget are just temporary and not personal to us. The third piece. And this is a B. C. By the way, if you're not following, I made it up for myself so I can remember. So except balance. And the third is to cultivate and that's now to think about our lives as leaders as human, not as these sentences that were handed down to us or something that we've achieved and we're in a position and we have to continue to behave in a certain way. But we have the pen in our hand and we can write this story of our lives and how much freedom might we have? How much power if we can now cultivate whatever it is we want to see in our life whether you just decide right now for the listeners, would you like to feel more calm in your life or perhaps it's more love or connection or more of a sense of courage or whatever it is. Just pick something and begin to take ownership of that. And what actions can you take each day to bring what's most important for you into your life. And that's the fun of this cultivation. That's why when you invited me to join you, I said yes, I want to cultivate connection and curiosity and hear from your wisdom. So that's what I would leave you as the parting message. What
[00:45:31] spk_2: a wonderful synopsis there the age Bc except balance and cultivate such a beautiful message for everyone listening And I think speaking for myself having to spend this time with you Jonathan. I feel more grounded. My heart feels fuller. I'm so grateful for you taking the time to be with us here on. We are human leaders. It's been an absolute delight and look forward to staying in touch and reading your book really soon.
[00:45:55] spk_1: Thank you so much. It's amazing sally and Alexis, you're in the right place, you're doing the right thing and so many people are benefiting from it. So keep up your amazing work. Thank you.
[00:46:05] spk_0: Thank you. We hope that you felt as seen and as heard by Dr Fisher as we did. He's an incredible man whose incredible journey is now helping to change the shape of healthcare and corporate workplaces. For more information on dr fisher's work and his upcoming book. Just one heart. We invite you to loan more in our show notes at W W W dot We are human leaders dot com. Thank you for joining us in this conversation and we'll see you again soon.