How do you unwind after a long day?
What’s your favorite way to relax quickly?
Today, Jay sits down with David Ko, the CEO of Calm and author of the groundbreaking book Recharge. Together, they unravel the complexities of stress, mental health, and how to create a fulfilling life in today’s fast-paced world.
David shares his personal journey, from navigating childhood stress to becoming a leader who champions mental wellness. He introduces the “battery analogy,” a simple yet profound way to gauge our mental and emotional energy levels. Drawing from his book, David explains how understanding and managing our “battery” can transform our approach to stress, productivity, and personal growth.
Jay and David discuss the power of presence, the necessity of balance, and how redefining stress—from harmful to helpful—can lead to resilience and growth. Their conversation dives deep into actionable strategies, such as creating rituals to recharge, fostering vulnerability at work, and redefining leadership to prioritize mental health.
In this interview, you'll learn:
How to Recognize When You Need to Recharge
How to Foster Vulnerability in Leadership
How to Balance Good Stress and Bad Stress
How to Build a Culture of Gratitude in the Workplace
How to Take Breaks for Better Productivity
How to Identify and Remove Stress-Inducing Triggers
Recharge your mind, body, and spirit—not just to keep going, but to thrive with purpose and joy. Prioritize yourself, because when you’re recharged, you’re unstoppable.
With Love and Gratitude,
Jay Shetty
What We Discuss:
00:00 Intro
02:10 What’s Something You’re not Calm About?
03:31 How's Your Battery?
05:42 The Four Battery Zones
10:59 The Importance of Recharging
14:24 Vulnerability in Leadership
18:37 Good Stress vs Bad Stress
25:25 Mental Health in the Workplace
28:56 Listen and Become More Purposeful
28:57 How to Take Care of Your Team
30:44 Supporting Employees’ Mental Health
38:10 Tools for Managing Burnout
44:19 How Do You Deal with Stress?
52:02 Put Your Focus on Healthy Stress
53:27 Daily Practices for Recharging
01:01:42 What is a Quality Decision?
01:07:08 David on Final Five
01:14:90 Is Your Battery Full?
Episode Resources:
David Ko | Instagram
David Ko | LinkedIn
Calm | Website
Calm | Instagram
Calm | Facebook
Calm | X
Sixty one percent of people feel expected to just get over stress.
It's like just power through the moment.
CEO of car author of Recharge, David Code.
Good stress could lead to resilience. You're never really going to have a stress free work environment. Not everything has to be twenty four seven three sixty five. Because at some point you've caused a lot of bad stress. That's a real kind of indicator for you to say, I need to really kind of take a heart stop and figure out how I recharge.
The number one health and wellness podcast.
Jay Setty, Jay Shetty sly Sheet. Hey everyone, welcome back to on Purpose, the number one place you come to become happier, healthier and more healed. Thank you so much for tuning in today. Today, I'm so excited because I talk to a really good friend, someone that I respect so highly and admire so deeply, and I've had the fortune of knowing for the last couple of years. I'm talking about David co the CEO of Calm, the leading app for meditation and mindfulness, and a new author of his book Recharge that offers tips for the best mental wellness practices in today's digital world. The book has interviews with rappers, rebels, and innovators as he travels, talking about stress, burnout, and feeling drained. If any of you are feeling stressed right now, this episode's for you. If you're feeling drained from work right now, this episode's for you. And if you need to recharge, this book and episode is for you. Please welcome to On Purpose, the CEO of Calm, David Co. David, it's great to have you here. Thank you Jay for having me here today. I'm so excited. I'm so excited because I really feel like ever since we met, I felt like we hit it off right away.
Yeah, yeah, right away, right away.
And I've been fortunate enough to have you interview me so many times, so I'm glad I get to repay the fava this time round. And I wanted to ask you just to get out of blood bone and just to stop with some fun. I wanted to ask you, David, what's something that you're not calm about.
I think there's a lot of things that I'm not calm about throughout my day. I will tell you right now, I am in the throes of my oldest daughter applying to colleges. Even though I try to peer very calm in front of her and cool and collective, you know, and you don't want to be like a helicopter type of parent. There are times where I'm just like, you know, I want to get in there and say something, but I realize almost like the best thing for hers for her to go through it, and I have to kind of take a back seat. And so it's kind of going from where you take the wheel to like you're in the passenger seat, and then you're in the back seat kind of peering every once in a while. But I can't help myself from like I don't know when she first learned drive by like saying, oh, I'm stepping on the break here and there, right, But that's one thing right now that is probably a little stressful.
Yeah, no, I can imagine.
I read a study that said we process around seventy two gigabytes of information per day, which the research likened to reading Tolkien's The Hobbit every single day. That's nearly ninety six thousand.
Words, right right.
And you think about that and you go, no wonder, we're overwhelmed. No wonder we're burnt out, No wonder, we're stressed, And you have this really brilliant analogy comparing the brain and our mind to a Battery's right, walk us through this, because I really like this in your book reach Outs, the way you break it down and explain it.
You know.
The recharge came from a good friend of mine and we were talking about mental health and I just asked her, I said, you know, how's it going with your kids? And she goes, you know, I was talking to my kids and I just said, how's your battery? And I was like, wait what, and she goes, well, I said how's your battery? I said why? And she said, well, if I asked them how they're doing, I get the plane fine, And because they're kids, they're just like, I'm fine. But if I asked them, like, how's your battery, they're like, well, it's at like fifty percent, or it's or so you may need a snack because they're little, or it's at seventy five percent. She's like, oh, you're okay, or sometimes there are twenty five percent and they just need something, you know, to decompress. While we are talking about it, a light bulb just went out. And that light bulb that went on was about like she took something that at times can be charged, and she took something and really simplified in a way that I think we would all understand regardless of age.
And I asked her.
I was like, can I run with that? And she was like yeah, sure, whatever, right, And we still laugh about it, Brenda and I because she's like, wow, you actually took it, and I was like, yeah. I used it as a theme. I talk about it, I go to clients, I'll go out and it just kind of resonates with people because it's simple and it doesn't kind of draw out any emotions. It just says like, hey, how's your battery? How are you feeling? And I think that's sometimes that gets lost because we are we try to make it bigger sometimes than it is, and it's really nice when you can kind of just simplify it and just ask you how's your battery? How you doing?
I love the question how's your battery? Even more than how you're doing, like you said, because I think sometimes I think you also mentioned that we can scale everything up to a ten. That's right, So everything can feel like it's a ten it's the worst, or everything can feel like, oh, it's just plain old fine, right, and then you don't have much to play with, whereas when you get a number, walk us through the different breakdowns as you do in the book, because I think when you look at zero to one hundred, we're very good at feeling zero and maybe a hundred, right, Like, if it's your kid's wedding, chances are you'll be at a hundred. If it's like your kid's birthday, like you're at a hundred. Like there's these joyful, listful moments in life that people experience and we go, yeah, that was a hundred moment, and then we all know what a zero moment feels. Like you lost a loved one who sadly paused away, you got you know, you lost your job, Like there's these very zero moments. Walk us through how you break down the zero to one hundred.
Yeah, and I tried to do it really simply. You know, I have found and I'll talk about my own kids at times when I ask them that question, how their battery is, I noticed that they check. Like most people, they check their phones quite often, and at some point it just becomes like a reflex and they don't even know they're checking it. But when they do look at it and the powers down, or it goes yellow, or it goes red. They get a little panicked, like, oh my god, I got to charge it. Imagine my surprise when we're in like airports and they're like going out to people, can I use a little.
Of your charge?
Right?
I think we've all been there where we don't have a charger and you are like, I need something, can somebody help me out? Most times people are really kind then they'll just you know, kind of help you, especially if you're a kid. I thought about then putting it into zones, and I put it into four zones, and I just said, you know, if you're at seventy five to one hundred, you're probably fine, and meaning that you know you're you're in a zone where you're just moving along. If you're at fifty to seventy five, you're probably in a place where you might need to start to think about how you may want to recharge. If you're in that twenty five to fifty, it's time to start figuring out take a break. You may need to take a walk, You may need to put down the phone. You may need to stop the litany of zoom calls that you're on right now, right, And if you find yourself zero to twenty five, that's a real kind of indicator for you to say, hey, something's probably not right and I need to really kind of take a hard stop and figure out how I recharge. And recharge can happen in a number of different ways, and so I've often talked about when I've gotten into that zone, I just kind of almost go for a walk. I sometimes go outside, I couple, I take some deep breaths, I do a number of things. Sometimes I may need a work out. A workout really helps me to recharge on a personal front. And everyone's a little bit different and they'll go to different techniques. And so in the book, I list a lot of things in the book that you may do. You may do one, two, three, four or all of them, and they're just really techniques for you to figure out what works for you.
Yeah.
No, And I really like that breakdown because I think we're all better when we're measuring things with numbers right as a specificity.
Yeah, And I'm one of those people.
I think the way your phone is charged says so much about you as a person.
So my phone is always charged.
Yeah, I'm very rarely below thirty percent or forty percent on my phone, and I think I try and monitor my personal health in a similar way. As soon as I feel myself going below fifty percent, I know it's time for an early night. I know it's time to cancel weekend plans. I canceled at dinner this evening for that exact reason. I got back from work yesterday.
I left.
I started work yesterday at like eight thirty am, and I got back from a shoot at nine thirty pm, and I knew I had a dinner tonight, and I just said, I'm so sorry I can't make it because I knew I had a busy day today. I was interviewing you, I was interviewing another guest, and I was like, I want to be really present for that. It's really critical stuff. And then I need to recharge, using your word, I need to recharge this evening. And I'm always shifting things to recharge. And I love that idea because I think we hear the word rest and then sometimes we feel guilty. We shouldn't, but we feel guilty like I don't have time to rest. But when you think of about recharging, you're reframing it and going, oh, I do need to recharge because otherwise how am I going to give my best tomorrow percent percent?
And you know it's funny, you and me are the same on batteries. I keep my battery pretty charged as well.
Well.
I have an electric car too. I marvel at people who can take that electric car battery down to five percent.
I can't do it.
That head stresses me out. I'm stressed out when they tell me these stories, Oh, I took the battery down to five percent. I'm like, seriously, how I mean? And they're like, oh, it's fine, you know, and for some people it works. Right For me, that doesn't work. I'm plugging in that battery every night, and I'm going to make sure I charge that battery up. Others will let it go pretty low. Everyone's a little bit different. That works for them. I've asked some of my friends who charge it go really low, and they're like, well, if I charge it too much, I get stressed. Yeah, like, oh okay, it can work the other way.
Interesting.
So it's got to kind of work for you and how you want to recharge and different techniques that you want to do.
Yeah. Absolutely.
I had an experienced last week where I went out to dinner, my call was plugged in, so I thought it was charged. And then I was driving the Calabasis, which is somewhat of a drive from here, and I realized I was running on like the reserve, so I was left an electrical too, and so I was like thirty miles left and I got to dinner and I think you had ten miles left, and the journey back was like forty fifty miles or something like that. And then I was thinking, Okay, after dinner, I've got to make it to one of those places. And I'm the same. And I was wondering if someone's at a zero when you ask them, how's your battery? And if someone says I'm at five and I'm talking about emotionally mentally, not not their car or their phone, what would you say to them? How would you communicate with them some of these tools when you're at zero.
I've learned to take the space to give them space so we can actually have a proper conversation. If you find someone at a really low percentage, and I may ask that person like, how are you doing, how are you feeling? They and most of the time you just want a I'm good, because then you just want to keep going. And I find that often in the business world as well, not just in the personal world, but in the business world, we don't want a response, or sometimes we don't have the time to be like, if that person who you're asking the question to says I'm not doing so hot and I'm not doing so well, then what do you do? So I'm very intentional when I asked some of these questions to individuals so that I give. I'm ready for that response if it's I'm not doing well, like a five percent, so I kind of want to frame it there.
I love it.
I think sometimes you rush through these conversations and then when they do tell you they're a five or a ten, I think the best things that I have found is you have to be present for them. You have to listen. You do such a brilliant job at that Jay because even in this type of environment, we know, as we have this one to one conversation, if I was telling you I was a five or a zero, you'd be all in on this and you'd hear me out and then you would start to tell me, Okay, let's let's talk about what's causing that. And I've had at times where family members have come to me and said, hey, I'm not I'm at a five, and we start to break it down and I said, let me, let me put it in another way. For you think about your phone and we do X on our phone and there's things on your phone that drain your battery more than other applications. And they're like, yeah, it's like when you go and Apple shows you what's draining or taking up all your memory, and what happens when you start to delete some of those things, or what happens when you start to recognize what's causing it. They're like, oh, my battery is much more efficient. And I'm like yeah, So let's have what's causing that in your in your personal life right now. And we try to create, like you know, analogies of different things and so it doesn't become a space where all we're doing is talking about all the negativity. We're trying to draw parallels to different things in everyday life and so that it doesn't become such a charge conversation, right. And that's kind of the recharge concept as well, where we're like, let's talk let's talk about your mental health, because sometimes some people don't want to talk about their mental health. When we bring up the battery conversation or how to recharge, it's just a different framing. And again, this is something I think you just do brilliantly to bring everyone in and I try to do the same thing there as well.
Yeah, I was going to ask you that, actually, because I've always felt that with you, You've always been present different touch points, whether we're at dinners, events where even when we've traveled and seen each other, when we're in New York for a dinner for time earlier this year, you're always present too. And I wonder how do you do that as a busy CEO, because I think you're so right that when we answer ask the question how are you doing, we are subconsciously hoping someone just says I'm good. We are all We almost ask the question and expect the response even before we have a response. You're so right, Like that really resonated with me. And the truth is, sometimes life is fast for most of us. Right. Our schedules are back to back to back. We are running from dropping your kid to school, running from running to work, picking up the laundry, doing the laundry, whatever. Right, there's so much going on, how do you actually create space for these convers sas.
And that's part of being a lot more present and intentional as leaders. And I'd be curious now for you as CEO as well. We're expected to have all the answers. We're expected to make many different types of decisions. We're expected to play roles in HR but also company strategy. And you know, when you take a step back, you can't make every decision, and then there's always things that don't that are the unexpected. Take your car analogy, so when you add your car and you were at thirty percent, you were probably with someone, but in the back of your mind, you're going, how am I going to get home? Where am I going to charge? And you could do this probably better than most, but you still want to be present for that individual that you're with or your friends that you're with in those conversations. And what I find is like, sometimes we as leaders have to make the space. Sometimes we as leaders have to show something that you do absolutely brilliantly is to show a vulnerable side to them and talk about our own stories. I find that many CEOs today aren't vulnerable. I, for one, was not very good at being vulnerable. When I wrote the book, though, I was just taken back at how many people who I met for the first time were so open and honest and vulnerable with myself, and it got me thinking, well, they can do it, why can't I do it?
Right?
And if I started to show some of that vulnerability at work, if I started to give a little bit of space and more time for that conversation, would that then make it just more open for others and more safe for others to have the conversation. Because if I'm not having that conversation and saying, here's my own journey, then they may feel that it's not okay for them to open up as well. Right, I just be curious, like you a CEO, right your I mean, you've got all these different businesses. How do you do that with your own employees?
Yeah, I think it's a For me, it comes to the balance. So vulnerability is a great point, and I really appreciate that because I do agree that if you create space to share what you're going through with your teams, they then have the permission to do the same. And I think I was mentioning when We did a panel at Calm Coast a month ago or so. I was talking about a client of mine that I was coaching, who's the seer of a very large corporation and we'd gone through a transformation. They were saying to me, Jay, you know, I'm feeling good and I was like, great, well you should tell your team about your journey. And they were like, how can I tell them right? And I said, what do you mean? And they said, well, if I tell them, they're going to think I'm weak. And I was like, no, I promise you they're going to think you're strong. And I think we're still redefining and reframing strength in the world today. I think there are some of us who still see bravado and arrogance and chauvinism as being strong, and I think that's shifting, but it's shifting very slowly. That's and so it is a cultural expectation as well, societal expectation of strength being this kind of facade. But I think a lot of us are now realizing, well, no strength is being able to show both sides and open up and be vulnerable. I think the other thing that really comes to mind when I'm thinking about being CEO. Is I think stress can make people work harder, but it's the right amount of stress that makes someone work so true, Right, there's.
A spectrum of stress.
So if I just keep checking in with someone and going have you done it yet? Are you done yet? Why are we not there yet? Why did the numbers not triple? This? If I do that, they're going to feel stress and they may work harder, but that doesn't mean they work better. And so, to me, the right amount of stress And I want to ask you this as well. Talk to me about the difference between good stress and bad stress and how you've been able to harness the right amount when you've got it right.
In the book, actually, I interviewed doctor add Or car and you met her. Yeah, she's wonderful, fantastic, right, And we got into this whole conversation of good stress, bad stress, you stress, good stress versus bad stress distress. And you know, we talked about how good stress could lead to resilience, it could lead to growth, It actually could lead to a stronger culture. You're never really going to have a stress free work environment, agree, you know, we're always going to have stress at work. We're all going to have deadlines. We're all going to have things we're going to want to hit, but but not everything has to be just like you said twenty four seven, three sixty five, because at some point it's going to stack so much that you, as a leader, are realizing you're probably not being very efficient. Your employees are probably not working super efficiently, not working well together, and they're probably you've caused a lot of bad stress, distress in their life that's leading to things like anxiety, depression, and then sorts of leads to physical ailments because we know there's a linkage between your mental health and your physical health, and so that becomes a very vicious cycle, especially in the workplace, and that leads to a lot of unproductivity. What I found with the two is you really have to find that right balance and understand there will be and just talk about it. There's a push. We're all going to make a push. We did it recently as a company at Calm, where we around the elections and we treated the elections like our super Bowl moment because we knew and we saw the data that people's stress was rising every day. As that day, November fifth got closer and closer, we saw it in the app store, we saw it in comments, we saw it on social So we really came together as a company to do different types of things around that take a breath, thirty seconds or fifteen seconds of silence. We showed animals from the San Diego Zoo on Instagram and we got so many people commenting that day that said, Hey, thank you for the silence, thank you for my fifteen seconds. In this world where so many things are happening now, people were dialing in from work because they were stressed at work. Stress doesn't just mean it's at home. It was like people were like during the elections, coming in from work, and so we wanted to give them a little bit so they had to release so they could be more productive. So there's a lot of things around stuff that I look at for good stress and bad stress and recognize there's always going to be.
A push pull.
But that's the part where you can't do it alone. You got to have a good team. You got to talk about it. You do this so well and make sure that becomes part of your fabric, your culture, your DNA. And I think it's shifting, but it's slow. I think the conversation around mental health in everyday life. It's the most approachable it's ever been. Right, I talk about things with my own kids today around mental health. When I was a child, coming, you know, i'd be curious, like for you, like immigrant family, we didn't talk about our mental health in my household, right. We talked more about powering through things. And I can talk about that later, but we didn't really talk about it. My kids talk about it. They may overuse it at times, not use it the right way. It's okay. They're having the conversation, their friends are having the conversation. I think that's great. But when you go to the workplace, it kind of stops, you know. And I go to so many places and I'm like, do you talk about your mental health at work? And they're like no, And I'm like, well, let's change that dialogue. Let's make it as approachable as it is in everyday life. And how do we start to do that. Let's give you the tools and we'll start at the top.
Yeah, you're so right, You're sor right.
What you're painting a picture of For me is that I look at the good stress being when we all know what challenge we're up against, we know what the goal is and everyone feels supported. And I think what often happens is people don't know what the goal is because you're not helping them do that. They only see the challenge and they don't feel support to us. Right, So now they don't know where they're going and they feel if they fall flat on their face, they have nothing to catch them. As a leader, the goal is to provide the goal and the support and then the person can focus on the challenge.
Yeah, and be transparent in that journey. You know, I speak to many CEOs in the valley and over the world, and you know, a lot of times I'll ask them, how do you prioritize things with your employees? How transparent are you? And I'll tell you many of them are not that transparent. Or they'll be like, these are the most important things, and then they'll add five more and then five more right, and I'll be like, oh, okay, what did you take away and they're like, what are you talking about? I mean, what did you take away? And they're like nothing. And I'm like, well, how do you think that's affecting your employees? And they're like, I never really thought about that. So I've just compounded and stacked the problem as a leader, and you didn't take anything away, and it cascades down like a megaphone. Think about what that employee is going through and walk in their shoes for a minute. You know, we at the top have the luxury of having more control over our schedules, but that person may not have as much control over those schedule. They're just ticking through things. And if you just keep adding and not taking certain things away and saying this is important, this isn't important. Here's how I think about it, Here's how I'm being transparent, you're adding more stress to your company.
Absolutely, could you walk me through at Calm? I love this.
When I first got introduced to Calm and started taking calls with the teams and I took my role of chief Purpose Officer, I got integrated into the culture. I loved the little things and the focus on the little things at meetings at Calm, whether they're on zoom in person, I want to hear about these smaller things that are happening on a daily basis, because I think often companies think they need to put out a thing that says we're focusing on company mental health, and they're doing these big things, but Calm internally let alone the work they do with other companies and workplaces. But Calm internally had some really nice cultural things that I noticed from the outside in as I was being integrated. Walk us through some of those daily things that you think create the rituals and practices that help people.
It was interesting for me my first day ACCOM. I walk in and they're Michael and Alex who you know well, the founders. I love them and they love you and they talk about you all the time and how you all first met. And they introduced me to the company warm welcome, so inviting, and they started to meet the whole all hands off with a meditation, and I wasn't really used to that, and I was kind of sitting there and I kind of noticed everyone. And normally we listen to someone like your we'll turn you on, or'll turn one of our other kind of narrators on. They do great, and everyone just kind of sat there in the moment and whether it was sometimes it's you know, really quick, thirty seconds, sometimes it's five, six minutes, three minutes, and they listened and it was and I kind of was peaking at times, looking I'm like, is everyone kind of closing their eyes you know around here, you know, looking there, and they were just in the moment. It was a moment for me that showed me how much they cared. And I was like, Wow, this company cares. This isn't forced. You don't have to be here, you don't have to do this. And they were there and they were present and they were in the moment. So that's like some of this. That was one of the ways I knew this company was going to be different. And then I watched as the company did things around gratitude where we end every all hands with gratitude. We read things that have come into us and it's a reminder of the impact we're having. And I think that's why sometimes I'm so stressed, because is that I feel this weight of responsibility where every second of every day, someone is using the product and I just feel like if we're not answering them, we're not helping them in the moment, someone's not getting something that they need. And I feel that stress and I feel the response. It's really responsibility. Yeah, And I talk about that with the employees, and I think it's really important to talk about that. So we do the gratitude piece at the end. We have zoom free days, you know, where I talk to employees about, Hey, if you're in a moment where you find yourself in five zooms, take a beat. You don't need to do that. And if there's meetings that don't make sense, just like you did tonight, which was great, just say no, it's okay. You know, we'll figure it out. And I do that too, and I try to be a lot more purposeful now because it helps me then be more present in the meetings that I need to be in. Yeah, right, And rather than saying, it's not the quantity of meetings that I'm in, it's those quality of meeting moments that I'm in. And I think people sometimes like misinterpret like quantity for productivity versus like value. And I'm much more like, Okay, I'm going to do I'm going to focus on quality and it may mean less and that doesn't have to sacrifice my impact.
I was going to ask you, how does it impact productivity? And I do think that we've convinced ourselves that if I'm doing more, if there's more on my schedule, if I'm jumping around, We've created our definition of value to be around busyness, right, and we all feel we're more important, valuable, And it's subconscious again, you just think, oh, yeah, if I've got a lot to do, then I must be doing something. Yea.
How do we start to.
Shift that conversation? What have you learned about that? I know you interviewed some amazing people as well as you were saying inside the book, what did you learn about how we can reframe what we believe makes us value? Yeah?
Yeah, So I had so two people in particular, so John Scully, for example, the former CEO of Apple. He talked about how in the book he was chief Listening Officer and I was like really, and he's like yeah, Like Steve asked that we make our own business cards, and I wrote chief Listening Officer. And I sat there and I was like, wow, that's that was great. You listen and so because so often, you know, you just start talking and he's like, no, I became a lot more purposeful if I just listened. First said probably less, but that impact was greater because I heard what was happening, and I thought that was great.
Yeah.
I had Jack Rowe, who's a former CEO Vetna in the book, he came over and he said, sometimes you have to put yourself into neutral. And he's like, and you have to give yourself space because you can't run it one hundred miles an hour. And if you don't give yourself a little bit of a break, no matter what position you're in, you're going to find yourself upside down and you're not going to figure out how to turn back up. And I appreciated those conversations with them because they're a little bit more old school and their approach. They think we're a little bit more in the middle now, and then there's a younger generation right that's coming up with thinks about things completely different. It's been such a privilege to be able to kind of talk to so many different people who are in that continuum to kind of hear how they're managing it right, even like how you think about things and how you manage all that right. It just must be a lot coming at you today from many different angles when they're like, hey, what do you do right?
Yeah?
Yeah, And I think for me it is the old cliche, but it's so true, like you are only as good as your team. And I do think being a leader means taking care of your team. In one sense, I feel like that's all a leader actually has to do is be the coach, therapist, support system, or provide and bring those things in for the team, and you almost become a coach. And yes you'll be strategic, yes you're being a visionary, but a lot of it is just loving people and supporting people. I find, at least I find like that's what most of my time is taken up one hundred p suing because everyone has their emotions and as long as you have smart people that you're working with, then those people are the people that investing in them as humans is allowing them to do what you trust them to do. But the thing that's holding them back is usually something emotional or mental. It's rarely professional that people have challenges, and I find it's something they're going through in their personal life. It's a mental block that they have and if that doesn't get healed and access in the workplace, that's going to be the spanner in the works, Like that's going to be the thing that bottlenecks the process. Creates inefficiency, creates a lack of trust. That's the kind of stuff that gets in.
The way and a lot of times too, when you talk to people, they have no idea what's happening outside the workplace, you know, but so much that happens outside the workplace affects the workplace. It's really important for companies too to have mental health support tools for employees so when they need things, people to talk to, you know, applications whether they're calm or others, therapy if they need it, if they just make those available and known, that's another step in the process. So that's why I always tell people it's not just one thing. It's kind of like a number of things you have to put together because people may take bits and pieces of each to make it their own, but it kind of shows them when they need it, it's there. And a lot of times people will go look for things on their own, you know, they'll search and they'll see if you've got tools and what companies and I do find that you sometimes will lose good people because you're not supporting them in their journey. And so the more you could be there for them and they know that, they become some of your most loyal, most productive culture bearing, you know, carrying the flag employees. And you didn't have to tell them to do it. They just kind of did it on their own. And I feel like those often are the best ones and I and we have a lot of those, and I just feel very privileged that we have so many folks like that that that they just care deeply and it's personal for them. My previous company I had started was a caregiving company, and one thing I had noticed in that company was that so many people that were caring for others were suffering right they and then they had to go to work, and people had no idea that they were doing like five jobs caregiver. They were worrying about their finances, they were trying to figure out how they help people, and then they had to go to work and they had a litany of things they had to go do. And most people have no idea how these things are going on, and they're people's lives, right because sometimes we just don't ask the question, and because we're so busy ourselves, where sometimes we don't want to ask the question because we're so busy ourselves we can't take anything else on. But I just feel that if we are just more aware and we create space for employees and we listen to what they have to say, flexible work schedules. What are they asking for? That's why I constantly pull our employees as well, what do you value? And they'll tell us and then if we have stuff that they don't want, put it away. I sometimes like, oh, all my employees want this gym membership and then nobody uses it and they're like yeah, and I'm like, now I just ask let's have our team go out and say here are the top ten things. What do you want? Yeah, and then we'll take away a couple of things that they don't use, you know, and we'll try to ask that almost every year.
Totally. I couldn't agree more. I love gift giving. It's one of my love languages. And you are so kind to bring me a gift today which is very thoughtful and very useful.
And both of which I will use.
And the reason I'm saying that is I love giving gifts too, And so you know, over the years, when it comes around the holidays, I love getting gifts for my team, and for a long term, I'd always be guessing, like what everyone wanted, and you assume that something's cool or trending or whatever it may be, and then you start to realize what you just said. People didn't really want that, and then at one point we're like, okay, well then we won't give gifts. We'll just you know, thank people and whatever else it was. But then we're like, no, but people like people like it, everyone enjoys it. And so it's so funny. We've started polling over the last few years, like what kind of gift would everyone like? And the number one answer this year was infrared.
Mask, Like, so what you call the red light? Yeah, so that was the number one requests.
We're like, oh, easy, now we know what everyone wants, so we're going to get that because it's easier rather than us guessing. And I agreed that. I do think people inside of organizations today want mental health tools. They want meditation practices, they want mindfulness opportunities and tools and apps and everything else. I believe there is a big demand for that, and I think it's only growing because people are feeling that if you don't have that, you can't have that conversation in the workplace.
That's right.
I think this is the part that I want companies and leaders to understand. If you're not providing tools to support people with their mental health they don't have a vehicle to talk about it at work. If it's available to everyone and they see it come out in the newsletter and the team's available and everyone knows about it, they can say, oh, yeah, did you see we're using calm now, and you know I've been doing this one and which one of you been doing it now? It allows for connection and conversation and community as opposed to be Without it, someone may just never talk about the fact that they've been struggling to sleep for seven days.
And I find that too amongst the younger generation. They just expect these things, yeah, you know, and they're asking for them, and they'll give up other things along the way and so and they're very vocal around it. And we've seen it now in all industries, you know, we've seen it happen in banking where people feel like, hey, you're not listening, and it takes a moment where they have to go to the press. Almost right, it shouldn't have to ever get there. Yeah, if they were listening to those kids and listening to your employees, then you've got a continuous feedback loop. More companies, the baseline will be you have to have these services going forward, and I think over time, then that will open up a dialogue. And I also think with CEOs today, I'll tell you, because it starts so much at the top, if you start to have some of these conversations and say here's how I think about it, here's how you're being vulnerable, that too, opens up a different conversation, and then that can just kind of percolate within the company, and then I think the whole thing starts to move faster, right, and then we can start to get more into a conversation of like, Okay, now, how do we get you the right care at the right time when you need it however you need it, Because so much of the conversation we're having right now is pretty basic in my mind, and we just need to get farther along in the conversation.
Yeah, I think a lot of people will question listening to us, going, well, how does mindfulness or meditation actually help burn out or how does it help stress? So that's one thing, and I mean there's tons of science on that, but I think there's still so I want you to answer that. And the second thing is, well, how does this affect my productivity?
Right?
Like, how does it actually get people to do the work that I need them to do. Sure, And isn't this just a distraction or slows them down? Because I know a lot of organizations just feel like this sounds good in theory, but how does it help. So if we can talk about how mindfulness and meditation specifically the programs that exist on comm how do they make sense for stress and burnout, then how do they make strens for productivity and performance?
Yeah, I mean I think I had both of those. I'll start with the second one first because it comes up a lot. And what I often tell people is when I'll just use Colm as an example, more than half the people that use Calm today come to us for sleep and they're having moments where they just can't fall asleep. Most of that comes, as we know, because they're sleeping next to their devices. The devices are constantly beeping. They don't shut them off. I talk about like it's hard, but you know, I keep my phone outside my bedroom. Not everyone does that. When I travel, I don't do that, and sometimes it leads to, you know, not a good sleep. And we know when you have a number of those days that start to compound, it could lead to irritability. It could lead to not being as productive the next day when you go to work because you're just tired. Right. You couple that at times with potentially bad eating habits or some people drinking habits or other types of habits that aren't and that doesn't create and it creates kind of like what I call negative behavior. I had that when I was younger because I didn't understand some of these tools. And I just wish I had some of these tools when I was younger, because I didn't do those things that created positive behavior change. When I was in banking, for example, and when I got stressed, I turned to smoking and I was just a kid, and I was like smoking in the stairwell of Solomon Brothers. I shouldn't have been smoking in the stairwell. That's number one. I talked about this with our employees, saying, hey, I didn't have apps like calm or tools to help me in the moment I wish I did. I probably would have turned to other things and understood that's positive behavior that I could turn to, not negative behavior. And if I have enough of that, then it starts to kind of change the pendulum. Because I then ended up on a very slippery slope. You know, you're smoking, you start to drink a little bit more that I'm eating more at odd hours, and then I try to go to sleep, and you just know, if you're trying to eat Chinese food at eleven thirty and you want to go to bed at twelve or twelve thirty, you're not going to sleep well because there's just a lot of stuff just sitting there right keeping you awake. And so for me, it's been this continuous kind of learning, and we talk about some of these things, and you know, I think in the workforce it's a little it's no different because people got to shut all the kids off to school in the morning, and you've got to make breakfast, You've got to do all these things. So you kind of need good sleep at night. And it starts I think a lot there, and then during the day we need breaks. People think and it's in the book that you that our brain has endless capacity. It's just not true. We don't have endless capacity. You know, our brain, like everything else, needs to recharge, and if you can find ways to recharge, whether it's listening to you every day. Congratulations on over six hundred episodes, we were talking about fifty million streams as a chief Purpose officer, which I am so grateful for because there are times where those seven minutes for me where I listen to you, whether it's in the car driving my kids to school takes ten minutes, some days it takes thirty with traffic. There are moments that I just cherish, or when I'm driving back alone, and it just helps me. Then as I start to recenter myself to be more productive during the day or during the day, I take a short break and I know how to recharge now, whether it's going outside, walking or others, and it makes me so much more productive because what I find is if I work in a manner and I find myself falling below fifty twenty five percent of my battery and I just keep trying to power through my work gets it's not very good. It's embarrassingly bad, I would say at times. And no amount of AI is going to make it better. You know, it's just not And so I then have to kind of take a step back and be like, Okay, you're trending in the wrong direction. Take a big and I talk about this at a company and with many other companies that are out there today, and I know so many employees I talk to resonate around this. Yeah, right, because I just feel it's an endless hamster wheel for sure, right.
Sure, Yeah, I was as you were speaking, I was thinking about how if you have a still mind, you actually make quicker, better decisions, and if you have a stressed mind, you actually make slower, worse decisions. And we think, oh, well, if I take time out to be still, I'll lose time, But actually, if you take time out to be still, you'll gain time because you'll make better decisions, There'll be more long term they won't be rushed and haphazard, and they'll actually be you'll be a better communicator. I know for a fact that if I'm stressed, I don't communicate as clearly I can.
I can be a.
Bit more like rushed and you know, kind of like let's hurry this up and with people, right, Whereas if I'm rested and i'm still, then actually I'm able to formulate ideas. I can be more tolerant, i can be more patient, which are all the skills you need. And so taking out seven minutes a day doesn't make you slower. It actually makes you faster and better and something I pulled from your book. These stats were really fascinating for me to read. So sixty one percent of people feel expected to just get over stressed. Yeah, that's unbelievable that sixty one percent of people feel like they'd expected to just get over stressed.
Yeah, why is that?
When I was younger? And I didn't understand this when I was fourteen years old, and I think it was much younger. I wrote about in the book that it was fourteen. I actually think it happened when I was younger. I just didn't. I just don't recollect those times when I got really stressed or nervous, and most of the time they're around like tests or speaking stuff front class. I just started to get a tightness in my chest. I would I would get shortness of breath at times, I would sweat in my hands, and I didn't really understand what was happening. And I talked to my mom, you know, and like a very traditional Creed mother, she'd be like, just power through it, and I'm like, oh, I'm just gonna power through it, right, But she didn't know either what was happening. And I don't blame her around that she's just didn't understand in the moment.
You know.
The reality is when you think about your mental health, it's not about to do you know, And it's not about powering through the moment. It's for me, it's about powering up, you know. And it's and that's where the battery analogy keeps coming back in. Yeah, and I didn't understand some of that, and then you cup and then I don't have the vocabulary. It wasn't really until I started getting into healthcare that I started to understand, Oh wow, this is what you were going through. You've been able to kind of manage it and through some unhealthy behaviors at times, and now you are doing through healthy behaviors. But the vocabulary has changed, right, and you have a better command of that vocabulary, so you know how to talk about it now, where I didn't know how to talk about it then. And so I do think so much of the population today is about powering through it. And I do think a lot of the population, and I would say more in countries like Korea or Asia, even though mental health is the most approachable it's ever been, Like in the States, it's not really approachable there you know, and that does make me sad at times. When I go back home my parents move back to Korea, they live there, I want to talk about these things with them, and it's not easy for them to talk about right. I don't know how it was for you. And did you talk about this when you were kid with you.
It's so interesting what you were saying about your experiences of stress growing up. Mine was the same and they didn't know what it was either, So I would it's the same things, exams, anything high performance related. I'd feel like my chest got tied to my heart, felt like it wasn't being the same. I'd get, you know, sweaty palms, and I remember going to the doctors and they'd wire me up with these monitors, like old school monitors, with all these big things. I'd have to wear it for twenty four hours and i'd go back and they'd be like, oh, he's fine, and I'd be like, but Mom, I'm not fine, Like there's something I'm feeling and there was no word for it, and so I can very much relate. And again my mom didn't know what it was. He then she was trying her best to help, but we couldn't figure it out, and so I got on with it and I always have, and then I was thankful enough to learn mindfulness of meditation. Many years later, that have been my core practices. And now it's not that I don't get nervous before I'm going on stage or a podcast. I still do, but I know what to do and I have my breath work. Yeah, I know what I have to lock into. It's not that I don't experience those emotions anymore, but I agree. Even in a South Asian family like I don't think that vulnerability was normal from parents. It wasn't common for uncles and aunts to be that way, and so it created a culture of always putting your best foot forward, always somewhat being performative, right, And I think I never subscribed to that. So I started very early on rebelling and just good for you being myself and I wish I had done that, Yeah, I was just. I'm just I started breaking the rules earlier on that, and I'm grateful that I did. But now I realize it wasn't that I was breaking the rules. I was just expressing my discomfort with having to put up a face or a mask on when everything wasn't okay, And I think that's hard for people to do today where I read another stat that said thirty three percent of people feel too overwhelmed by daily stress to think ahead. Like when you think about that, it's like, gosh, like you know that's what people are under.
What is someone that you forget that?
Right?
You forget that?
Just forget it. I mean you think about those numbers, that's whether it's two thirds or one third of all people feeling this way, and you start to realize, well, that's heavy, you know. And if you were in a room in three out of ten or six out of ten, or feeling a certain way, you start to realize there's more. That's just why with corporations, I think it's so important that they can take leadership positions. Again, I always go back to the top on some of these things, because if we're not comfortable being vulnerable, and if we're not comfortable making sure there are HR teams have the tools to talk about this with employees that we don't support some of these initiatives. We're kind of in a place where we're saying, oh, we don't believe some of those stats, but the stats are there and growing right, and yes, there's you know, there's life things that are happening, but technology is moving so fast on the other side, right, I mean, we are definitely in an era right now where kids have grown up with their smartphones. They act differently then you know when I grew up or when you grow up. It's just different. We end they grew up with this technology, they're very comfortable with it. The speed of it, which is is coming so and then there's the weight of what's happening just in life around them. And so some of these things even at the company level, which are interesting and you don't do this is like and I found this a little bit with myself. I'll just tell you on a personal front, we're taught to play it very safe, and I think that's an important thing too. I'll tell you a lot of people miss is that you know, you don't want to say the wrong thing, So you're not going to talk about your own vulnerability because that's not playing it down the fairway. You kind of want to be boring, I'll be frank with you. For a lot of leaders, not all leaders, which we know there's a couple of them that are quite but for most leaders, when you go out there. They're media trained to be right down the fairway. And what I love when I listen and watch your podcast, it's so authentic, it's so real, it's so safe for all the people that listen and then and it just shows right with how many people are tuning in every day right and listening to you and doing what I did. It's like I'll listen to somebody and then I'll go back to that. I'll be like, oh, I remembered that. I'm going to go back to that. And it's just because we just play it safe in a lot of places today and you don't want to say the wrong thing. Yeah, and I think it's okay, you know, like even if I was here with you today and maybe something and I didn't say the right thing today, I'm in a space where I feel so safe with you right now. I just want to be myself and not everything's going to be perfect, absolutely right, And that's kind of part of life. And I've started to accept that, and I've become much more vulnerable with my own employees to be like, hey, this is okay. And because of that, in the last couple of years, we're stronger, we're stronger as a company. We just had a board meeting and they're like, wow, this is great. Everyone's like, yes, we're doing much better. But I think because we're developing and really building on the right culture, we're asking the right questions and we want to lead by example.
Yeah.
Right.
What was something you shared with them that you feel was challenging, uncomfortable that that led to that breakthrough.
Yeah. I in the last one that you were at, I did talk about my smoking as a kid. I talked about me being overweight as a child, dealing with that that insecurity. I've always had a struggle with food. I love French fries. I'm just gonna yeah, I guess I'm telling all I love ice cream, and I think sometimes and I have a really no matter what I try to do diet wise, if you put some fries in front of me, I'm gonna eat them. If you put some ice cream in front of me and someone my kids are having, I'm gonna eat some of that too. And my kids are like, Dad, I thought you were like full. I was like, I was all right. So I struggle with that. I know when I'm a little bit stressed, I'm a little bit of a binge eater as well. I try to obviously develop a lot of healthy habits also around how do you be healthier? And so I do. I do exercise a lot more. But some of those things are hard just to get rid of, you know. It's more like you're going to have to live with it, and it's how you live with it. That's like that comment about stress. You're never going to have a stress free workplace. Yeah, but you've got to figure out how you just have more healthy stress, right, how you stress rather than distress.
Yeah.
What's the most common thing you hear from leaders that they're struggling within their organizations when it comes to stress and team's mental health.
I think a lot of leaders today struggle with As I spoke to you about vulnerability and how you gave the story about vulnerability, that story plays over over and over again. Well, you know, leaders struggle with how to be vulnerable. And I think it's I think it's generational on a personal I think the new leaders that are going to arise, the ones in their twenties, are going to have no problem all right, because when you look at social media today and a lot of the younger generation, they talk about their mental stress, and they talk about their mental health and they're very open about it. Now again, they may overuse it or you know, but at least they're having a conversation around it. I think, you know, with other leaders today, when I talk to them, they're just like, hey, is it a sign of weakness like you brought up? Is it going to be used against me?
Yeah?
Is someone going to write about it and say I'm too weak? Is the board going to think I'm weak as a leader? And I think that is the that's ultimately also a fail of corporate stewardship because they have to also look after your mental health, you know. And so when i'm you know, I'm fortunate to be on the board to come today, but if I wasn't CEO, I would be asking that CEO, hey, how are you doing? How are you holding up? Let's not talk about the numbers today, you know. I find it really effective when I meet with CEOs and they ask for some coaching. We don't talk about any numbers, we don't talking about the metrics. We just talk about life and we'll eventually go to that later. But I think when we start with more of a trusting place where we can understand what's happening around you, then I can be much more thoughtful in the type of advice I give. But this also means I have to create the space and the time to do it, so not everyone has that, right, And that's where I think it's just really important to be really intentional, right, be really purposeful in these conversations.
Yeah, I think one of the reasons why we struggle to recharge is because when your phone's running out a battery, there's only one Well, we're also bad at this. There's only meant to be one type of charge. And now I've seen people charge their phone with their map charger, destroying your phone, right you see being charged with the iPad charger. Like, but the point is there's one charger. Yeah, And I think when it comes to life, sleep is a charger, meditation and mindful now food is a charger, working out is a charger, and people you love being around good relationships are a charger. And if everyone, while you're listening to this, if you could figure out the most common times you feel at one percent and figure out what's the charge you need for that, right, Like, that's what I think we need to do.
Like I'll give an example.
I went to an event the other day and I had to fly out of town and come back into town.
I got back at like four am.
And I worked out the next day, and I felt so weak because I hadn't slept well of course and eating well, and so at that point I'm glad I still worked out because I needed it. But I taught told my trainer I had to get a bit of an easier workout because I didn't want to push myself when I felt weak. But it's like it takes little adjustments of figuring out what charge you need right now, Like now, I've had a busy week at a busy weekend. This weekend, I know, and recharge means I need no social plans, Like that's what's going to recharge me. And so I wish everyone could just write down while you're listening to this and while you're reading David's book Recharge, you write down one of the most common experiences you feel when you feel drained, when you feel overwhelmed, when you feel burnt out, and what is your charger, so that you don't have to think about in the moment, because when you're trying to figure it out in the moment. That's when you get more overwhelmed. Like I know, before I go on stage, I always practice breath work. If I've had a couple of late nights, I know sleep is the only charge.
That's going to solve it. Yeah.
Right, speaking of that, because you've talked about you know, certain rituals. Are there certain things that you do every day, like religion every day that you just do.
Yeah, I kind of do what I call like what I feel is like a good eighty twenty. So, like I know, five days out of the seven days a week, I'm working out. Five days out of seven, I'm meditating before nine am, and then the other two will be meditating after nine am. And I like that balance that I have gratitude something I'm practicing every single day. Yeah, it's such an important one. I think we do something with my team that I love. Every Friday will do a weekly win and everyone's encouraged to share what they believe is their win. And sometimes what's amazing about this activity is you feel it will always be like, oh, we had so and so on the podcast, or we won so and so award, and it isn't. It's actually these little things that people are doing behind the scenes that are not like these grand wins externally and they believe that that's been their success. And I think it's a really great way to actually get to know each other because you get to see what people value as success and you get to understand what people see as value in the work they do, Whereas we just assume that of course, if there's a big quarter, then everyone should be excited, and it's like, well, maybe not, because that's not what they equate as their personal success and contribution. And so doing the week key wins on Friday is one of my favorite things to do with my team. I love that takes like thirty minutes to do, and everyone just goes around my cool team and just shares what was their weekly with huge.
I love that I sometimes start my beginning of the week staff meetings with like, how was your weekend? Just tell us something that happened personal, you know. I also find sometimes we get into all the details without getting to know one another, yeah, you know. And I find a lot a lot of times teams don't work well. They can work better together when they're a little bit more personal with one another. And it may it doesn't have to be deep. It could just be like, hey, what did you do? Some people will say I went on a hike, I you know, went to my kid's game, or you know, I went I traveled somewhere, or binge watched the show and we're all like, what show? What's your favorite show or something, and we just get to learn something a little bit more personal about the individual, and then it's less about oh, did you hand in that PRD? Yeah it's that thing, right, It's just it's more personal, and I think and by you just doing your wins every week, you know how, I just I love that.
Yeah. I think about it as very simple. I think about it like this. You're going to spend a third of your life at work. Yeah, learn to get along with your colleagues. Yeah, learn to build relationships with the people you spend nine hours a day with. You're going to spend a third of your life with these people. You should actually really get to know them. You should be able to laugh with them. It would be wonderful if you could open your heart with them. When we kind of go, well, works this thing over here and I save all of that for home. You're basically saying that thirty percent of your life, you'll never experience joy, you'll never experience connection. And I don't think that's the world we want anymore. I think we need a world where work can be meaningful and thoughtful and purposeful. And again, going back to what you said, it's not that it will ever be stress free, that's right. It's not that it's ever going to be perfect or this utopia or this beautiful place where everything's amazing. But I think one of the things we don't realize is that a lack of productivity stems from lack of trust. Yeah, when you have trust and you have interpersonal connection, things move fast and people are not gatekeeping. No one's trying to be a bottleneck. No one's looking out for how they can be top dog. There's this feeling of we're all going to win together. And I think if leaders can start to figure out what that culture is, then people will achieve so much more and they'll be happier. I think, you know one of my I would hate to be at the top of a hill with the team and three people like gave up along the way.
Two people told me they never want to come back.
Right. I was going to ask you, you've had so much business success before Calm. You know at Calm, like walk us through how your views have changed of recharging and recharging your team.
It's it's it's actually really interesting. I used to be one of the youngest secs in the room, and now I'm the oldest person in the room. I think when I was younger, I felt that I had to be in every decision process. And that's a little bit of like, oh, I'm productive because I got my hands in everything, and it was probably the opposite. I was probably causing more stress and less productivity on approach. And I realized that later that it's it's not the number of meetings or decisions you're making. It's not the quantity. It's the quality of those decisions. And I keep going back always the quality of decision making.
What is a quality decision. Let's let's define that.
Well, that's great. Yeah, So like it's things that you feel that where you sit could move the for me, can move the business forward in the most meaningful manner. So sometimes it could be helping teams unlock a product decision. Sometimes could be helping teams with things that partnerships that may move it forward. Other times it may mean things around culture or HR, but it's really being intentional in terms of the types of decisions you're making and where you're spending your time. It's not being in every decision with everybody because ultimately they have to make decisions too. One thing we've been doing now that I feel that is really brought the company closer together is we did this retreat where it wasn't just a leadership team. We brought many different people together and I said, you guys, come up with the company strategy.
And they were like and this woman.
They were like what. And I'm like, They're like, don't you have it. My younger self would have been like, here it is. I was like, no, you do it. And I'll tell you it was so much better than what I was thinking. And it just reminded me again, you hire all these smart people, you take all these time vetting them, doing reference checks. Let them do their job. Give them a chance. If it was a sports analogy to shoot the ball, give them a chance to play, you know, don't feel like you're keeping them on the bench the whole time and you have to do everything and give them a shot. And I do that a lot more now. I'm much more intentional with it now. It was great. We rolled it out to the company at that offsite you were at. People came away and said it was the most inspiring offsite and they were like, that was great. I said, I didn't do it. They did it and came from the team, and I think it felt so much more meaningful to them because it came from them, and it was so much more spot on and we And really what it was around was we've talked about trying to make the world healthier and happier. We've tried We've talked about as a company trying to be with you every step of the way and your mental health journey. And this was really around how to become how do we become the most impactful consumer mental health company in the world. And when I sat back and said that's what we want to become and the team had kind of been the one synthesizing it, then everyone started mobilizing against it on their own and they had thought about things that I never even thought about because I'm just too far sometimes away from the details. And then now I've seen us accelerate and I know that motion and muscle can be repeated right, and you can bring it to other companies regardless of size. And I think sometimes as companies get larger, and I've had the fortune of starting my own company where it's like three of us, and then it grows to thirty whatever, three hundred, and then the thousands, and then the fortune of joining companies later where it's thousands and it becomes hundreds of thousands. Ultimately, that culture is your bedrock. You know, whether or not how many people you stack on top of it, what you start to set as your foundation will percolate amongst the entire company. And if you don't do that the right way, and if you're not thought then you may not get the results that you're happy with, right, and you may create more stressful environments that you just unintentionally didn't think about. And that's where I really appreciate about when leaders come around, they talk about being more thoughtful and their decision making process, being more vulnerable, being more open, really thinking about employees' mental health, but then not just talking about it, but then really acting upon it totally. And if you can do that a little bit year after year, right, you can really create a special culture. And I think they'll do special things.
Absolutely, David, It's been such a joy talking to you today. I really enjoyed our dialogue around recharging. And you know, I'm so grateful for the work you're doing at Calm because I remember being a analyst at Eccentia and I.
Was taking you were really good.
I was, I was okay.
I was tasked with teaching meditation in my spare time and mindfulness in my spare time at the company, and I would travel around and I would do lunchtime sessions and after work sessions, and I couldn't scale myself. But now thanks to Calm, not only am I able to scale myself to more people, but we're able to introduce people to so many amazing hosts and narrators that we have on Calm. And I think inside an organization, you no longer need someone running around the organization and physically trying to serve lots of people. You actually have the ability for everyone to tune in. And we end every on Purpose episode with a final five. These questions have to be answered in one word to one sentence maximum, So David Cod, these are your final five. The first question is what is the best recharge advice you've ever heard in your life to.
Be more present. I recognize at times that I've been there, but not really, and so you are. You do so good at this where you're just so present, whether it's one person or hundreds or thousands, I've seen it. I've been in your auditoriums where you've tried and everyone feels your presence and so presence.
I like that answer, not in the part about me, you're very kind, but the because I don't think we've realized how draining it is when you're not present. And you gave that great analogy earlier. When you have lots of tabs and apps open, Yeah, that's when we drain our battery. That's right, and so so many of us are draining our back by thinking, oh, I'm here right now with David, But actually, if my mind's over there, I'll get more done. And you're actually depleting your battery. So it's a great answer. Second question, what is the worst advice you've ever heard about recharging yourself?
Sorry?
Mom, because she's going to be listening and watching, and my mom. I love my mom, so I'm gonna start by that, and she's given me lots of great advice, But this probably was the worst advice she gave me as a child, which was to power through. And it's not about powering through. It's really about powering up. And she didn't know, you know, but you know, Mom, I think it was not about powering through.
Question number three, what's your three favorite ways to power up?
So I have rituals like you and my rituals. In the morning, when I wake up, I don't look at my phone right away. I actually go downstairs, I start the coffee, I open the window, and I walk outside and I take three breasts. And it's been something I've been very intentional about doing. If I'm traveling, I try to open the window, you know, wherever it may be, if you're an apartment or something. That process starts to center me. The second I do is I do a lot of walking meetings, and so I'm a big fan of like trying to break things up that help me reach or so people give me energy, I would say, going outside, breathing people give me energy. And then lastly, I think, similar to yourself, I love to exercise as well, and I've become a lot better at keeping a steady schedule around it. And even someone said this to me the other day. They said do something every day, right, and I'm like, great, I'm gonna do something every day, and I'm gonna be really intentional about it and just keep at it. Some days I'll go to the gym. Some days I'll do something at home, but be really quick, but exercise as well.
I love that question before what are your three favorite ways to power down?
I turn everything off, meaning the following, so be just putting my phone and turning it over, because I don't think sometimes that's enough. I'll just be like, you know what, I'm kind of done. I wanted to ask you earlier because I'm curious if you had a day and you didn't use your phone social media, what does that day look like for you?
Those are the best days. It doesn't happen very often. I've definitely tried really hard. One thing I've really focused on is when me and my wife were together in the evening for dinner, and then if we're watching a show or something. Is not bringing the phone to those two things because I found myself a lot of the time like finishing off last emails messaging while we're having dinner, and then when you're watching a show, you're distracted, and then you watch your partner get distracted, and then you're like mad at them for getting distracted. But then when they put their phone down, you've got yours up, and they're mad at you for getting distracted. I was like, what are we doing here? And I was starting to notice just my attention span just dropping. I've noticed that a lot in the last twelve months, more than any time before, and I've realized so much of it is because of just the speed of consumption. So now it's not even that we're consuming a lot. We're consuming a lot at a really fast rate, and so you're just making it easier for your mind to get two seconds of everything. And so for me, I try and make my weekends very phone free, because weekdays I am on my phone. I've also found that even when I'm with my team, if I can have my laptop in the room, but my laptop's not connected to messaging apps and then my phone's not in the room, I actually find I'm better with my team. So I can still do email, I can still do work on my laptop, but it's not wired up to WhatsApp, it's not wired up to text message. I don't need it, and so I've been trying to leave my phone actually out of my hand when I'm not traveling. If I'm going out for work or driving, of course I need my phone, but if I'm in the office, I don't need my phone on me in meetings or in between meetings. Actually, and all of this is stuff I'm still working on too, because I find myself go through ups and down with it. There are times when I'm brilliant at it. I also follow you. I don't keep my friend in my bedroom, don't look at it first and in the morning. But I also have days where I break that completely when I'm traveling. And so I don't want to make anyone feel like I've got it down or perfect, because I haven't. And I think it's almost like peaks and troughs. There's always a good day and a bad week, and a good week and a bad day. Yeah.
Yeah, that's great, that's brilliant, just being honest.
Yeah, Fifth and final question to David co If you could create one law that everyone in the world had to follow, what would it be.
Kids have to go to gym five days, and they know there's physical exercise, and it's just kind of like it's just understood. Why can't we take some of that time for children to also better understand their own mental health and to teach them about their mental health because we know so much of this starts early, just like it started with myself at fourteen. If I had that vocabulary at fourteen, I probably would have developed better kind of healthy behaviors at fourteen and did that as I turned into a young and so I would love to take a little bit of time. It doesn't have to be all the time. It could be a carve outs maybe once twice, three times a week where we educate our children, check it on them on their mental health or their battery, and ask them the question.
I love that.
What a great lawyer that would have a big impact on the world. The book is called Recharge. We've got interviews with everyone from Rando Park to Maclamore. It's a brilliant book, so fascinating.
You know them. You know, I love the format. I loved the format.
The format is fantastic, Like you sat down with experts, with rappers, with rebels, innovators, thought leaders, and you put together this beautiful book called Recharge. David, I'm so grateful that you put it together. I'm so grateful we connected and I'm and thank you for taking the time having me here. Thank you for talking about the book. It's it's it's something I'm so proud of. I hope people people get some you know, really get something out of it. We talked to a lot of different folks, like you said, like Randall, who's you know? You know as well, and many other folks there, Isla, and they just talked about so many amazing things, and I was really touched by talking to each and every one of them. I was honored to hear their stories and it just made me a better person. It also has helped me in my mental health journey, and I hope it helps some other people as well. David, thank you so much. Is there anything I didn't ask you that you really want to touch on? Something that's on you? How o mine that's calling for you to share. I'd love for you to share it.
You never asked me how my battery is, how's your? I would tell you my battery is at one hundred over one hundred percent because I got to spend time with you. Yeah, no, no, And I'll tell you conversations like this just recharge and energize me. I love the fact that we got to sit. I've loved the fact that I got to know you personally and professionally. I'm so grateful for our friendship, your mentorship, your words of wisdom. I know how many millions of people you affect every day. I mean over fifty million people on a comp the entire employee base of Calm. Just I can't tell you the impact you've made both on us on a personal and professional front. So thank you. I want to ask you, how's your a battery?
Do you know what?
And I'm not just saying this because you're here and I really do mean it. You recharge my battery too, Like this conversation is, I'd say, before you came in today, I was probably at like a sixty.
Yeah.
I've had a lot of social events in the past couple of weeks. Just we had Devali, which is our yes beautiful festival every year we had. There was just so much going on and all good stuff, all stuff I wanted to go to. But I'm very disciplined about my sleep all year around, and at this time of year, I kind of let go a little bit because there are so many wonderful events that I get invited to, and so I've been feeling a bit and as soon as you came in, you took me from a sixty to and ninety five easily. And honestly, it's this conversation because it felt so real, so authentic, so genuine. I felt like, again, you were really present, And I think that's what we don't realize when you're present with and you're charging them up while you're being charged, and that's such a superpower that often we think, oh, if I'm charging someone else up, I'm losing energy, but that's not true. If you're charging someone else else up by being present, you're getting charged, so are they. And we've both felt that today and I genuinely felt that today, And honestly, Calm has just been such a brilliant partner. It's the team I love working with every day, whether it's the content team, the team that we work within the studio, the team that I get to see once a year, the leadership, everyone walks the talk there and it's it's so impressive to me. Thank you because I felt it from the moment I started doing zooms and meetings with everyone at CARM and It's remarkable what you're all doing and I can't wait to be a part of the future. So congratulations, and it's just the beginning. We're just getting started.
I appreciate it. Thank you, David, thanks for having me.
If this year you're trying to live longer, live happy, live healthier, go and check out my conversation with the world's biggest longevity doctor, Peter Attia on how to slow down aging and why your emotional health is directly impacting your physical health.
Acknowledge that there is surprisingly little known about the relationship between nutrition and health, and people are going to be shocked to hear that, because I think most people think the exact opposite