Transcript
Speaker: The reason why you don't have what you are aiming for in life, your success, your goal, whatever that is, the money, the thing, it's not because you're not working hard enough.
Speaker: It's because you're not resting hard enough.
Speaker: Hi everyone, welcome to the Alchemy podcast.
Speaker: I'm your host, Dana Davis.
Speaker: The Alchemy podcast explores a happier and healthier future for all.
Speaker: Featuring conversations with thought leaders, scientists, and change makers, we'll explore topics at the intersection of individual wellness, social equity, and sustainability.
Speaker: Join us as we live to bridge the gap between personal, community, and planetary well-being.
Speaker: Let's dive in.
Speaker: Hi everyone, today we have Keebee Anderson with us.
Speaker: Keebee is the founder and CEO of Life Editor, a professional development executive coaching firm.
Speaker: Her role is to help clients unlock any restrictions on their vision and mindset to expand what's possible and ultimately edit or change any self-limiting stories.
Speaker: Her clients span global Fortune 100 companies, technology, media startups, as well as experienced entrepreneurs and senior leaders looking for an edge and additional support as they navigate their professional paths forward.
Speaker: Kiwi's track record as a successful coach is driven by her amazing experience as a senior business executive and film and television producer with over 20 years of experience in strategy, business development, media, entertainment, tech, finance, and entrepreneurship.
Speaker: She's born and raised in Seattle, Washington, and has received her MBA from NYU Stern School of Business and a BA degree in East Asian Studies from Harvard University.
Speaker: Not only that, but she's also an Emmy Award-winning film producer.
Speaker: And we're really, really excited to have her here today with us to share a little bit more about the power of pause.
Speaker: So welcome, Keevy.
Speaker: Yay!
Speaker: It's Dana.
Speaker: Listen, I need to take you everywhere with me.
Speaker: Seriously.
Speaker: I love to hear that.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: I love to hear it.
Speaker: No, it's a pleasure.
Speaker: First of all, I love even the name of your podcast, The Alchemy.
Speaker: I'm so into the idea of what is the metal?
Speaker: What are the different elements that you put together to create success?
Speaker: So excited to be here.
Speaker: Love, love that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And I think that there's so much that our community can learn from you and just this message that you've shared with
Speaker: around the power of pause.
Speaker: But before we jump into that, I really love to ask people this question around who they are.
Speaker: And this can go in so many different directions.
Speaker: How did you get to where you are today?
Speaker: And I really leave that up to you to share with what is the most meaningful moments in your life that has led you to now.
Speaker: So I would love to hear more about your bio rather than something that's on paper.
Speaker: I know.
Speaker: That's one of the first questions I always ask my folks.
Speaker: What's not on the page that I don't know about you?
Speaker: So, well, first of all, welcome.
Speaker: I mean, sorry, thank you for having me.
Speaker: Welcome, everybody, to the episode for today.
Speaker: I always describe myself, first and foremost, as a storyteller.
Speaker: That is what has been the thread that has kept everything that I've done, you know, throughout my career and throughout my life.
Speaker: kind of on the right track.
Speaker: You know, I am somebody who has been driven relentlessly by curiosity around people's lives and their experiences.
Speaker: And that has allowed me to experience things I would have never imagined.
Speaker: You know, a young kind of black girl from Seattle, Washington, came from humble means, not very rich, but because I
Speaker: was exposed to books younger, or in the case of my mother, who was very kind of prevalent in my community, I was always interested in bringing international people, different political figures into my life.
Speaker: I would ask them about their stories.
Speaker: The idea of like, what would it be like to have a story that takes me to study in Cambridge, you know, and go to school?
Speaker: And, you know, so that sense of curiosity, I think, is really at my core, a driving part of my purpose.
Speaker: And so because of that, you know, I have,
Speaker: had the opportunity to...
Speaker: I don't know, just explore what it means to be a human being, what it means to be a business owner, what it means to be a creator of content, what it means to have impact on how other people experience and engage with people's stories.
Speaker: You know, my work as a producer has really been rooted in, you know, exposing the unexposed to different cultural points of view.
Speaker: And that is at the end of the day about making sure narratives are accurate, you know, so.
Speaker: For me, that is a driving part of my purpose.
Speaker: And when I think about my work as a coach, it absolutely drives that work, too.
Speaker: I'm always about making sure that the narrative that we are telling ourselves as human beings, as leaders, obviously, is serving us for the season that we're in.
Speaker: You know, and sometimes, you know, we have to be mindful that stories have different chapters, you know, our lives have different chapters.
Speaker: And so it's important to not get stuck on chapter one when you're in chapter 10 and making sure that you've allowed for the evolution.
Speaker: And if not, that we are acknowledging that and then doing the work to make sure that we are capturing and reinserting, taking out editing as we describe, you know, those narratives that are no longer serving us.
Speaker: So hopefully that gives folks an idea of like how I kind of experience the world.
Speaker: Yeah, no, I love that.
Speaker: And I think though, too, I know I've heard you speak a lot about this, but just your experience growing up, can you share a little bit more about who you were as a young person?
Speaker: You have an amazing scholastic record and achievements as a businesswoman.
Speaker: And so how has that shaped you to who you are now and this whole concept of the power of pause and bringing you to this moment now to focus on that?
Speaker: Yeah, well, I am a classic overachiever.
Speaker: You know, I will tell my clients, you know, folks who talk to me, listen, we all have these voices in our heads that, you know, in many ways, I think drive us.
Speaker: But if we don't make sure that it's a voice that's telling us a positive narrative, it can cause us to sometimes do things that are not in our best interest.
Speaker: So classic overachiever.
Speaker: So what that means is my mother told me that these were not acceptable.
Speaker: And, you know, growing up in a household where excellence was always driven, education was pretty important.
Speaker: You know, I thrived in that.
Speaker: You know, I love to read.
Speaker: I was, like I said, very curious.
Speaker: I loved making people happy.
Speaker: And I think because of that, a lot of my success was kind of driven by this desire to continually receive the accolades.
Speaker: So as you shared, you know, 4.0 in high school, valedictorian, you know, that took me to Harvard.
Speaker: Actually, prior to that, I moved abroad and lived in Singapore for two years.
Speaker: I was recruited as a scholar to attend a school called the United World College of Southeast Asia that recruits brilliant kids in their sophomore year of high school to actually go to one of, at that time, there were like 10 campuses, but the idea is you bring all these students.
Speaker: brilliant kids from all over the world together.
Speaker: And hopefully, you know, and it was founded during the height of the Cold War, which, to be frank, is now what we're still kind of re-engaging in, that if we know each other, we don't want to kill each other.
Speaker: And so beautiful idea of international understanding.
Speaker: And I mean, it works.
Speaker: I mean, it absolutely worked.
Speaker: It was a brilliant time.
Speaker: But again, it took me to Harvard.
Speaker: And yeah, I mean, you know, that idea of like, what can I do that's even bigger than what, you know, you may have done before absolutely drove a lot of my thinking.
Speaker: I think that the downside of that, and I think this is what ties into this idea of the power of the pause, is that when you are only thinking about success being the outcome, being the end goal, you're
Speaker: You never satiate it.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Like because once you hit it, it's like, OK, well, what am I going to do next?
Speaker: And you end up going into this cycle, which is what happened with me, where I would achieve something and not feel the gratification that I had hoped.
Speaker: And so I'm stuck on this rat race where I'm consistently trying to do it over and over again to the point where I literally almost killed myself.
Speaker: My health was deteriorated.
Speaker: I had a mental breakdown, fell into a serious season of depression.
Speaker: And it forced me to have to really get into communication with, you know, kind of my God, myself around like, what am I really here for?
Speaker: You know, like, and.
Speaker: if all this working hasn't got me the goals that I want and hasn't achieved, given me the happiness and the joy and the success that I want, then I got to rethink this.
Speaker: And so it began to really ask, it began to force myself to really think through this question of like, why are you so afraid to rescue me?
Speaker: Like, why are you unwilling to actually think about this differently?
Speaker: You know, you're, you know, and I mean, we'll probably get into this, but
Speaker: it really boiled down into like a physical breakdown of my body.
Speaker: You know, like I'm sitting in a hospital bed, you know, tubes and everything coming out of me.
Speaker: I'm like a hundred pounds.
Speaker: And one of my best friends came up to me and was like, you know, Kibi, you are the most brilliant person I've ever met.
Speaker: Like you, as I've just shared, you know, you've traveled the world, you sat in rooms with, you know, with senators and presidents and stuff.
Speaker: You know, you, you've advised CEOs of global companies that are making billions of dollars.
Speaker: And yet I don't understand why you will not use all that brilliance to solve
Speaker: And to heal yourself.
Speaker: And it forced me to really get real quiet.
Speaker: And I literally started sobbing after she left.
Speaker: I mean, even now when I tell this story, I always bring something up for me because she was right.
Speaker: She was right.
Speaker: And so there was a connection between this achieving, achieving as a sense of worthiness and like, let me, is that really true?
Speaker: And let's really go into this journey to really ask and unpack that question.
Speaker: I resonate with your story so much, Kivi, as I always call myself a recovering perfectionist, recovering overachiever, and trying to not feel like I have to be doing something that is like productive, quote unquote, for those who can't see me, I'm putting quotes in the air because society so much puts so much on output.
Speaker: And what does that mean?
Speaker: And how does that drive value back to the individual?
Speaker: And so I
Speaker: yes, I just resonate so much with your story.
Speaker: And I think something too that comes up a lot in these narratives is that, you know, work-life balance.
Speaker: And I think I love how I've heard you talk about this in other places.
Speaker: It's more about the pause or about harmony.
Speaker: Can you explain that a little bit more?
Speaker: Because there's so much of this like work-life balance that you hear, especially in corporate world.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: You know, I'm
Speaker: First of all, I'm on a movement right now to do a couple of things, but one of them is to blow up this idea that balance is the goal.
Speaker: You know, I feel like we've been boozled.
Speaker: We've been taught that like we have to achieve balance in our lives.
Speaker: And the truth is like inherent in the concept of balance.
Speaker: And this is why I don't like it.
Speaker: And I prefer to use a term like harmony is a systemic balance.
Speaker: structure of lack, right?
Speaker: And I often, like I tell people, close your eyes.
Speaker: And when you think about this idea of balance, I oftentimes think about a seesaw, right?
Speaker: And in order for a seesaw to work, in order for one thing to go up, you have to take away from something else and vice versa.
Speaker: And inherent in that is a idea that there is only so much time.
Speaker: There is only so much space.
Speaker: There is only so much possibility.
Speaker: Now, as an achieving person, and anybody listening to this who is, you know, a successful business person, a successful leader,
Speaker: You don't want to have to give up.
Speaker: Like the idea that in order for me to be successful at work, like I have to not be there for my kids or in order for me to like take a break and go on vacation means that I can't show up and kill it in that meeting.
Speaker: You were always going to say no.
Speaker: You it is a losing proposition.
Speaker: And I am speaking because that was me.
Speaker: It was like, please, I'm not going to do that.
Speaker: So you are inherently setting yourself up for failure.
Speaker: So the reason why I encourage folks to reject that and think about harmony is
Speaker: is that harmony inherently is a much more fluid concept.
Speaker: Like when you think about, you know, and I use the word, I use the analogy to music, you know, a musical note.
Speaker: The definition of harmony in music is, you know, two simultaneous chords living at the same rate in the same space and creating a beautiful sound.
Speaker: So the idea inherent is that you can have two things happening.
Speaker: work and rest happening in a beautiful dance.
Speaker: And at the end of the day, it still creates a beautiful sound.
Speaker: Like you still get a good result.
Speaker: And when you start doing that, you can actually rest and work in, um, in like partnership with each other.
Speaker: Like they don't seem to be in conflict.
Speaker: They seem to be in partnership.
Speaker: And when you at least start with that as the premise, um,
Speaker: It allows you to give people permission to be like, okay, I'm listening.
Speaker: Keep talking.
Speaker: And that's what I'm just trying to draw you in.
Speaker: So hopefully that gives a general idea of why I want people to stop aiming for balance and to start aiming for harmony.
Speaker: Yes, no, and I think that is so spot on for a lot of the topics that we're discussing and exploring on this podcast in general.
Speaker: I don't know if you've heard about this emerging term called regeneration.
Speaker: And even in the sustainability world, we're talking less about to sustain.
Speaker: It's more about how are we living in harmony with each other
Speaker: the planet, our communities.
Speaker: And that's like really what we're all about here is like this idea of harmony.
Speaker: So I love that analogy because we're seeing it show up in so many areas of society today that it's no longer like this or that.
Speaker: It needs to be symbiotic.
Speaker: It needs to be nourishing all aspects versus on this teeter of like, I have to give up something to be doing something else.
Speaker: Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Love that.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So then in terms of pausing, can you share what that means?
Speaker: Like what does it mean to pause?
Speaker: And I know that can probably vary so much from person to person, but yes.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Well, you know, I mean, so let's take a couple of things because you're right.
Speaker: It does vary from person to person.
Speaker: And so the first thing that I oftentimes encourage people to do when it comes to giving yourself permission to even open yourself up to this idea of pausing more is to embrace this idea that we need to redefine rest.
Speaker: Like we need to redefine what it means to pause because to your point, society has all of these ideas floating around, you know, and the media is a big part of that, that make us think that like resting can only be done in two ways.
Speaker: Like resting is sleeping, you know, resting is going on vacation, you know, resting is going to sit in a monastery by yourself and like meditating for hours in isolation.
Speaker: You know, these are the images that we are oftentimes given as the definition of rest.
Speaker: And while
Speaker: In no way am I saying that those things are not rest, but those are not the only things that are restful.
Speaker: And how many times have we all went to sleep, woke up and we're still exhausted?
Speaker: You know, how many times have we went on vacation and we need a vacation from the vacation because it's just literally exhausting us?
Speaker: Or like we're in such a mad dash to get to the vacation that we exhaust ourselves.
Speaker: So by the time we're on vacation, we don't even really get to enjoy it because we're just so exhausted.
Speaker: So what I encourage people to do is to embrace an idea of defining rest as doing anything that gives you joy.
Speaker: That is what rest is.
Speaker: That is what a pause is.
Speaker: And when you do that, it allows you to.
Speaker: Think about the things that, like I said, gave you joy as a little girl and how much are you incorporating those things into your lives, right?
Speaker: So for...
Speaker: Someone, you know, hosting a dinner party could be very rest-filled for them.
Speaker: It could be the energizing thing that they do.
Speaker: You can do that in community.
Speaker: You know, you don't have to do that in isolation.
Speaker: You can do that in partnership.
Speaker: You can get off of work, come home, host a dinner party.
Speaker: And that experience can be very rest-filled because it gives you joy.
Speaker: So again, it just opens up the opportunity for everyone to, hey, stop feeling guilty,
Speaker: Because they can't take a vacation.
Speaker: Because oftentimes vacations are not very restful for certain people.
Speaker: It allows people to personalize what rest means to them.
Speaker: And again, create that entry point for us to begin to go further.
Speaker: Okay, so now that we're thinking about rest in a new way, allowing us to really redefine it and reclaim it.
Speaker: then we can really lean into, okay, this is where the power is.
Speaker: This is where I'm trying to get here, you know, going forward.
Speaker: And so that's, that's one step, I will say.
Speaker: It's a step-by-step process, but that is absolutely one step.
Speaker: I absolutely love what you said about like, what did brought you joy as a child?
Speaker: And I, the first time I thought about this was probably a year ago.
Speaker: And I've
Speaker: consciously been trying to incorporate more of those things into my life.
Speaker: And you don't even realize like the things that you really love.
Speaker: Like I used to love doing art.
Speaker: I read a lot of books.
Speaker: Like something I've gotten back into is like fantasy books, which I loved as a child, but I stopped doing as an adult.
Speaker: And yet, you know, I'm finding these new things that just even tapping back into who you were as a child and finding those moments as an adult is just so joyful and restful at the same time.
Speaker: So that's it, you know.
Speaker: And one of the things that I often tell my, you know, because I speak on this, I do workshops around this is like,
Speaker: Just close your eyes, you know, because to your point, how many times have we just not taken even 30 seconds to reflect on the stuff that we did when we were a little kid?
Speaker: You know, like for me, like riding my bike was the most joyful thing, like cooking chocolate chip cookies, you know, rolling.
Speaker: I mean, I'm from Seattle, Washington, you know, so I would I had the blessing of having friends who we could go on a sailboat and like I would literally come back from a day of sailing.
Speaker: absolutely thrilled.
Speaker: You know, I love to go feed the ducks.
Speaker: I mean, those are things that I did.
Speaker: And to your point, when you start reflecting on that, in here in your body, you start to feel more relaxed.
Speaker: Like I know I do.
Speaker: And so I encourage your listeners, you know, as you are thinking through this process to give yourself permission, and again, this is really about giving yourself permission, right?
Speaker: To just say, you know what?
Speaker: I want to rethink my orientation to rest.
Speaker: I want to rethink how I live in the world.
Speaker: And I want to really
Speaker: begin to feel empowered, to feel like the ultimate opportunity is to think about rest as the source of all power.
Speaker: I oftentimes encourage my clients to kind of state this, to really like meditate on this statement.
Speaker: The reason why you don't have what you are aiming for in life, your success, your goal, whatever that is, the money, the thing, it's not because you're not working hard enough.
Speaker: It's because you're not resting hard enough.
Speaker: And that is the biggest sort of aha when folks begin to be like, oh, OK.
Speaker: And I have receipts, you know, like I give the data because I'm a database girl.
Speaker: And I can kind of tell you from my own personal life, you know, other clients of mine who really adopted this what I call rest first centered mindset.
Speaker: The results are amazing.
Speaker: Like they're absolutely amazing.
Speaker: So that's just a really powerful kind of tenet around a lot of the teachings and the activations.
Speaker: And I think like to that point, I know in a lot of the mindfulness work that I spent a lot of time thinking about, it's this idea of surrender, you know, and like, I feel like so...
Speaker: I want to jump into this right now actually talking about our American culture because we do not incentivize surrender.
Speaker: We do not incentivize pausing.
Speaker: We don't incentivize rest.
Speaker: We don't incentivize just kind of enjoying and being.
Speaker: What do you think some of the common barriers that are that you've seen in society today and how can we or how do you face them with your clients and help them move through that?
Speaker: Part of this is a very Western cultural thing.
Speaker: You know, I do want to identify in many parts of the world, parts of Latin America, you know, parts of South America, other places, there is a different orientation towards rest.
Speaker: And I think we have to.
Speaker: So that causes us to identify like capitalism, you know, just our society's intention and obsession with the output, as you said, right?
Speaker: You know, our society has been built not to incentivize happiness, joy, peace, longevity.
Speaker: It's been built to incentivize you spending money and inherently telling you that something's wrong with you.
Speaker: And this is the thing that's going to actually help you.
Speaker: And for those of us who are leaders and running companies within this environment, it's even harder because you're consistently being told bottom line, bottom line, quarterly revenue, you know, catch your goals.
Speaker: So our goal oriented society is very steeped in an output based thing as opposed to
Speaker: a process and a learning-based thing and an efficiency-based thing that is centered on allowing the human being to activate from their best self.
Speaker: Our society has been built on human beings as machines, not as sort of creators and generators and ideators, which is who we really are.
Speaker: And so, like I said, that's part of the reason why a lot of these societal expectations have to be released to even sort of begin to activate where the true power is.
Speaker: A lot of this is also because...
Speaker: and I'm just going to keep it real, like the barons of industry, you know, the Rockefellers and the, you know, the Carnegie Mellons, everything.
Speaker: And listen, no shade, no foul.
Speaker: I mean, these folks are able to do what they did, but they need a working culture.
Speaker: I mean, they need a working class.
Speaker: Like this doesn't work unless people are being told that in order to be successful, you have to work.
Speaker: Like it's inherent in the universities that we went to, you know, and I was the best in the world, you know, but I came out thinking that in order to be successful,
Speaker: I had to have the degree.
Speaker: I had to have the big title.
Speaker: I had to have all that kind of stuff.
Speaker: And while there is worth in that, that is not the definition of our worth.
Speaker: And again, this idea of shifting into a sense of surrendering to really where your power is, is absolutely what is fundamental in the teachings that I am trying to get people to understand.
Speaker: Because the truth is the owners don't want you to think that you are an owner.
Speaker: Like you are a creator because then you don't want to work for them.
Speaker: You're going to start questioning.
Speaker: You're not going to want to just do what they say.
Speaker: And then the system doesn't work.
Speaker: And so part of this is about you owning and beginning to access weight.
Speaker: Like, why am I so unwilling to rest?
Speaker: The reason why I was so unwilling to rest, I'll just use my own personal example, is because I was afraid that if I rested, I would not be successful, worthy, muddied, whatever.
Speaker: And so you can get to that core question, like, why am I so afraid to rest?
Speaker: Then you can begin to figure out how to solve that problem.
Speaker: Because the problem isn't in the rest.
Speaker: The problem is there's something that you need to solve.
Speaker: And the resting is actually what gives you the time to think about the solution to the real problem, right?
Speaker: We are conflating the two.
Speaker: And so as soon as I began to get still,
Speaker: and or do the things that gave me joy, going on walks, going for bike rides, the ideas started coming to me and I was like, wait a minute.
Speaker: So the reason why I'm so afraid to rest is because I'm afraid that I'm not gonna be successful.
Speaker: Okay, what is it that's causing me to feel that I'm not gonna be successful?
Speaker: And is that really true?
Speaker: Because when I look around me, I'm like, you were the most successful person that you could be at this stage in your career.
Speaker: So what is really going on?
Speaker: And so, you know, everybody's journey is different.
Speaker: I'm just giving you my own personal journey.
Speaker: But when I spent time and I mean, I'll just kind of dive into my personal story from my health journey.
Speaker: So everybody listening, like I have a rare autoimmune condition.
Speaker: I was diagnosed about 15 years ago.
Speaker: I had just moved to New York to start an MBA program.
Speaker: So you can imagine, I've like literally moved my entire life from the West Coast to the East Coast.
Speaker: I am engaging in an MBA program.
Speaker: You're also in New York, which is a very like go, go, go city.
Speaker: Go, go, go city.
Speaker: I wake up one morning before my first day of orientation and I am dealing with swelling in my legs.
Speaker: And this was a part of my symptoms.
Speaker: And early on, it hadn't really happened.
Speaker: But I'm like, let me go to the doctor.
Speaker: You know, everybody goes to the doctor.
Speaker: The doctors are like, so Kibi, I noticed you've been dealing with this for the past several months.
Speaker: Nothing's really happening.
Speaker: Maybe you might just want to rest.
Speaker: Like maybe just kind of stay off your feet.
Speaker: And I'm looking at these people like, have you lost your crazy mind?
Speaker: What are you talking about?
Speaker: So I, you know, I was like, can you just give me some drugs?
Speaker: Give me some drugs.
Speaker: Give me the drugs.
Speaker: Give me the things, the painkillers.
Speaker: Dana, I said that, give me the drugs.
Speaker: I don't have time to rest for eight years.
Speaker: At the end of that eight years, and these are my symptoms, I started off with one, you know, a season of like light fevers, you know, chills, the things, inflammation.
Speaker: That turned into, like I said, I was almost 100 pounds.
Speaker: I had started with a single ulcer that started to manifest.
Speaker: I had over 23 ulcers across my body.
Speaker: And I don't know if y'all know what an ulcer is.
Speaker: I mean, like it is the most excruciating, painful thing.
Speaker: It feels like the act of getting an ulcer feels like someone is running a blowtorch up and down your leg and just literally starts to burn and fall off.
Speaker: That's just the beginning because then once the scab falls off, you've got an open wound and it takes three to six months for it to heal.
Speaker: I had over 12 of them on my body at once.
Speaker: Open wounds.
Speaker: So I'm covered in bandages that stink, that are pussy.
Speaker: I mean, I just have to give you guys this description to just understand the magnitude of how insane I was because I was still telling myself I do not have time to rest.
Speaker: Yet every ounce of my body was saying, Kibi, what is your problem?
Speaker: To the point where as I started off in this conversation, I'm sitting in a hospital bed attached to tubes, can barely walk.
Speaker: And I'm having to really ask myself this.
Speaker: And so it was the thing that forced me to be still.
Speaker: I had no choice.
Speaker: And I ended up taking a full year off.
Speaker: I was blessed to be able to do that.
Speaker: I got rid of every responsibility.
Speaker: I got off boards.
Speaker: I stopped working.
Speaker: I literally was able to just be still.
Speaker: And I started doing everything that I just told you guys to do.
Speaker: I started doing things that gave me joy.
Speaker: I just started being still.
Speaker: I started getting in community.
Speaker: And when I tell you, Dana, the results after that year,
Speaker: within the first three months of coming off of that, I made more money from re-engaging with my coaching business, which came out of being paused, you know, thinking about what is it that I really wanna do.
Speaker: I made more money in the first three months doing that work than I did the entire year prior where I was stressed out, working a 10th of the time.
Speaker: I just wanna be, I mean, this is like a quarter of a million dollars
Speaker: Within three months, working a 10th of the time, all because I paused.
Speaker: First, secondly, I healed.
Speaker: Like I actually got better, you know?
Speaker: So just pausing, I talked to the doctors.
Speaker: Like I stopped asking for the drugs and I was like, okay, tell me what I need to do.
Speaker: Like, how do I get better?
Speaker: Change my diet, change the way I was thinking about my meditation, my exercise.
Speaker: I mean, these are all things that I can go, you know, I mean, y'all can read, you know, there's a lot of different ways for folks to kind of dive into this.
Speaker: But my point is, this is not just theoretical.
Speaker: people like anybody out there who may be like questioning yeah kibi you're special or this is not theoretical this is real database stuff and i would i would encourage everyone who's listening if you were to think about the last time you stressed yourself the f out about something and by no despite by chance you were forced to just let it go you didn't even have any choice before and then it worked out
Speaker: Like the thing that you were worried about ended up just working itself out.
Speaker: Or you got an idea that ended up being the solution that you needed.
Speaker: If you were to really reflect, it was because you paused.
Speaker: It was because you started to lean into resting.
Speaker: You started doing things that gave you joy.
Speaker: And that is why I encourage people to think about that as the place to start.
Speaker: as opposed to the place that you get to after the work.
Speaker: Yeah, oh man, there's so much to unpack here.
Speaker: I feel like one of the things that I recognize is that we as a society, again, don't appreciate these moments and that we need to find a way to adopt peace
Speaker: in the pause.
Speaker: Like that is something as in the narrative as society that we need to to start to develop more.
Speaker: And I'm just like curious from you, like, how can we do that?
Speaker: Like, how do we or how have you with your your clients like help to create this adoption of like finding peace in pausing and resting?
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: We're gonna, we're gonna write it down.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: How do you lead with a rest first centered mindset?
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: First thing is you have to adopt a mindset of abundance.
Speaker: And, you know, that can be a little bit of a cliche, but it is so powerful.
Speaker: And the reason why I say that is because initially the first thing that we always confront is this narrative of, well, what can go wrong if I rest?
Speaker: Right?
Speaker: Like, well, what can go wrong if I rest?
Speaker: Well, Kimi, what if I'm not there?
Speaker: What if so-and-so shows up?
Speaker: Like we have all of these things that we start with and that's because we're operating from that lack mindset.
Speaker: So the first thing is to shift to what can go right if I rest?
Speaker: Just start there.
Speaker: Because even if you just start there, it's like, oh, okay.
Speaker: Well, there is some other stuff that can happen.
Speaker: That's the first thing.
Speaker: And I promise you, the more you start doing that, the more you recognize when that mindset of lack kicks in, that mindset of fear, and you start and you say, no, no, no, let me ask what can go right.
Speaker: It will increase that muscle.
Speaker: So that's the first thing.
Speaker: The second thing is you have to learn how to create boundaries.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And again, this is hard, simple in statement, but hard in concept.
Speaker: The first things I start telling people to do is lead with the understanding that no is a complete sentence.
Speaker: Like you've got to begin to create an understanding that everything is possible, just not at the same time.
Speaker: So how do you begin to learn how to create clear boundaries?
Speaker: And there are tools, there are, you know, there's mindset shifts you can kind of work with, you can kind of work with coaches, but within that, that is the first thing.
Speaker: The third thing is to begin to see rest as a lifestyle practice.
Speaker: And this is the thing that a lot of us have to begin to kind of overcome this idea of I'm going to go take a sabbatical for three months and then everything's going to be fine.
Speaker: And then I don't rest for another two years.
Speaker: You've got to start seeing this as a discipline.
Speaker: And so start small, right?
Speaker: Like, is there an opportunity for you to just do 10 minutes a day of the thing that you love?
Speaker: Think about it, right?
Speaker: Once you really get that list of those things that give you joy, how do you begin to incorporate those things in your lives on a consistent basis?
Speaker: I promise you, the data shows.
Speaker: The more you start doing it, even in small increments, consistently over time, the amazing the results, the more amazing the results you'll be.
Speaker: And then over time, you will be able to do it.
Speaker: This is somebody, I have a client right now, a major tech company globally who I'm so proud of.
Speaker: Their CEO has instituted...
Speaker: Two times a year, it is a rest of rejuvenation week off, the whole company.
Speaker: I'm talking about 3,000 employees.
Speaker: Everybody shuts down.
Speaker: They tell their entire client base, we are not going to be available.
Speaker: Like that's the kind of leadership that we need right now.
Speaker: Allow people to see and understand.
Speaker: And the reason why he's been able to do this is because he has the data.
Speaker: Like he shows that when he does this, the seasons since he's been doing it versus the years that he wasn't doing it, productivity has gone through the roof.
Speaker: Engagement scores have gone through the roof.
Speaker: Retention has gone through the roof.
Speaker: You know, the appreciation and and leaning in around DEI initiatives has gone through the roof.
Speaker: So the data is there.
Speaker: And if you see that at the macro corporate level, it'll absolutely show up in your individual lives.
Speaker: So those are the three key things.
Speaker: Like I said.
Speaker: Embrace an abundance first mindset, learn how to set boundaries.
Speaker: Thirdly, make it a discipline, make it a practice.
Speaker: step by step, you will be able to lean into this rest first center mindset.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: And I think on top of that too, I think as humans, we crave this community.
Speaker: We crave community in doing this work.
Speaker: And we know in different keynote speeches, you've talked a lot about the tribe.
Speaker: Like what is that role of surrounding ourselves with the people that can support and encourage this idea of pause and rest?
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: No, no.
Speaker: It's so funny.
Speaker: I have another book I'm working on.
Speaker: Which is called the power of small circles.
Speaker: And inherent in this is the importance of doing this in community.
Speaker: Like I said, I mean, it's really hard to overcome the immense pressures of society, the immense pressures of all the learnings that we've had on our own.
Speaker: You know, one of my favorite books that I read in the last kind of couple of years was Atomic Habits.
Speaker: And one of the things that really blew my mind was his idea around kind of letting go of this goal oriented mindset, which I was the queen of and leaning into an identity based mindset.
Speaker: Like I want to be so instead of being like, I'm going to lose 10 pounds, it becomes I want to be a person who takes the stairs.
Speaker: I wanna be a person who eats plants three times a week, right?
Speaker: So you're still gonna lose the weight, but it allows you to really shift the emphasis.
Speaker: That is what community building is.
Speaker: It's getting around like-minded people who even if they haven't mastered the art of like leading with rest first, they want to.
Speaker: And so when those moments happen where you may fall off, I mean, I literally, I don't have it here, but I literally have a mug
Speaker: that somebody gave me that is emblazoned with power of the pause, Keebi Anderson.
Speaker: Because when I tell these, when I teach this stuff, when I coach people through it, the reason why I'm so passionate is because I'm talking to myself every day because it is a constant battle.
Speaker: It is a constant battle for me to say, Keebi, there's power in the pause.
Speaker: There's power in the pause, Keebi.
Speaker: This morning I was on a walk and I was stressed and I was feeling the pressure end of year.
Speaker: Am I going to hit goals?
Speaker: And I was like,
Speaker: Kiwi go for a walk, which is one of the things that gives me joy.
Speaker: And I want you to meditate on this line.
Speaker: And I took my mug with me and I looked at it and I was like, power in the pop.
Speaker: And it's because somebody in my community was like, nope, I know you.
Speaker: So we go visual cues.
Speaker: So that's why it's so important, you know, and you want to find people who are different from you, bring a different perspective.
Speaker: And you maybe have the yogi, the person who's always pausing with the person who's like ultimately, you know, hard, hard work.
Speaker: Because again, it's that harmony.
Speaker: It's that movement.
Speaker: It's that, um,
Speaker: you know, two people, two things, two energies moving in, you know, a harmonious way, moving in a similar fashion that allows for the symphony to be created, right?
Speaker: Like you can't harmonize on your own.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Oh, that's such a beautiful, can we pause and just like record that, that quote?
Speaker: We cannot harmonize on our own.
Speaker: There's no way.
Speaker: There's no way.
Speaker: It's not possible.
Speaker: It's legitimately not possible.
Speaker: And we need each other to create that harmony.
Speaker: It's necessary.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Love that.
Speaker: As we start to wrap up our conversation, I feel like we're going to have to bring you back on with this next book.
Speaker: I think that's a whole nother conversation I want to have around community.
Speaker: But we'll have to wait for that for another day.
Speaker: But as we're building this community, I think this idea we just were talking about, about meeting each other, both from a personal level, a community level, a planetary level.
Speaker: What role does the pause have in that?
Speaker: Like, what role does the pause have in our collective well-being and our ability as a society and as a planet to heal and be well?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I mean, it has everything to do with it.
Speaker: And that's the reason why, you know, for me, I feel I know that this is a calling.
Speaker: You know, I know that this is a movement that we're building because we are vibrating right now as a world.
Speaker: When you think about what's going on, all the war, the wars and the destruction and the sadness and the isolation.
Speaker: I mean, we talk about, you know, where we're in a global pandemic around just loneliness.
Speaker: You know, a lot of that is because we are going so fast.
Speaker: You know, the only way that I can ask you, Dana, like, how are you doing?
Speaker: Is slow down and listen and actually receive what you say.
Speaker: You know, I have a dear friend who I am working on a business project with, and it's related to like a bone broth that I drank a lot when I was sick.
Speaker: And I love that because it forced me to have to go slow.
Speaker: And so he always tells me, he's like, he'd be sip your bone broth and take your time.
Speaker: And I love that because when I think about the power that comes from a rested and inspired and engaged mindset, a collective that has the time to think officially, to listen, to actually understand.
Speaker: tap into the vibrations, the needs, the emotions of the world around them, that is the only way we're going to solve this, the problems that we're facing right now.
Speaker: Like it's not going to be through individual action.
Speaker: It's only going to be through us coming together because the problems are so big.
Speaker: Like, so I mean, that is why when you as an individual get out here trying to do stuff on your own and think that the power comes from your work alone,
Speaker: You get overwhelmed.
Speaker: You get stuck.
Speaker: You start falling into depression.
Speaker: It's because you're believing this lie that is not true.
Speaker: And we have so many people, leaders right now, who are operating in the world that way.
Speaker: So that's why the economies are not as strong as they could be.
Speaker: That's why there's all of this wasted talent, wasted gifts, wasted productivity in terms of our human capital, our resources as a world.
Speaker: Because we're just not taking time to think.
Speaker: about how to do this well.
Speaker: So, I mean, you know, I could spend hours talking about that, but absolutely it is the key.
Speaker: It is the truth.
Speaker: So, you know, my personal story makes it very, very powerful for me.
Speaker: You know, the data and the results that I have from just working and living in my own life and then extrapolating this to my coaching clients makes me even more confident in knowing that this is what we have to do.
Speaker: So day by day, step by step, person by person.
Speaker: So anybody listening right now?
Speaker: Please tell me you want to sign up for the movement.
Speaker: You know, as we finish, I'm going to always encourage people to just take a minute to breathe and to repeat this statement.
Speaker: There is power in my pause.
Speaker: There is power in my pause.
Speaker: There is power in my pause.
Speaker: There is power in my pause.
Speaker: And I think the more of us who can meditate on that every day, we will see the change that we want to see.
Speaker: Oh, Kiwi, that was like the best way to end this because I, even as we were saying that together, I felt it reverberating in my body.
Speaker: And even if you just take a moment to pause,
Speaker: And sometimes it can feel uncomfortable to pause, but noticing that uncomfortable, like that uncomfortable space, just acknowledging it.
Speaker: It's just so powerful.
Speaker: That's it.
Speaker: That's it.
Speaker: And listen, I don't want to make it sound like it was not difficult to pause.
Speaker: Like, you know, we don't have enough time to go into the amount of consternation and anger and persuasion and kicking and screaming that I experienced in that year.
Speaker: So good point, Dana.
Speaker: It is not easy, but nothing worth having ever comes easy.
Speaker: And this is what we are dealing with right now.
Speaker: The ability for us to
Speaker: transcend I think some of the sleepwalking and the my newness movement that has gotten us to where we are today where we're just not happy yeah amazing Kibi thank you so much for being here today I am so inspired and I'm sure everyone else who's listening is equally as inspired and going to continue to work on that uncomfortable space of pausing and acknowledging that it is hard but you know as we do it there's just so much more that we can benefit as we give ourselves that space to rest absolutely I
Speaker: We were built to do hard things, people.
Speaker: We were built to do hard things.
Speaker: That is why we have a brain.
Speaker: Love that.
Speaker: Well, thank you again.
Speaker: And we'll hope to see you back again soon.
Speaker: Yes, absolutely.
Speaker: Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker: Thanks for listening to the Alchemy podcast.
Speaker: If you enjoyed our conversation today, you can find more about the speaker in our show notes below.
Speaker: In order to build a global community committed to well-being for all, we need your help.
Speaker: So please rate and subscribe to whoever you're listening from.
Speaker: Finally, we cannot do this without the help of our amazing team.
Speaker: A huge thank you and shout out to Lindsay Todd, our producer.
Speaker: All right, y'all have a lovely, lovely day.
