Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin - How To Deprogram Stress with Chief Mindfulness Officer at TIFIN, Thomas Droge

Episode Date: December 11, 2023

In recent years, there’s been significant conversation around burnout and how to beat it. From those conversations, we know that mindfulness has a place in our work… but how literal should that be? According to Thomas Droge, the Chief Mindfulness Officer at Tifin, it should be pretty literal. Nicole talks to Thomas about why we all need a mindfulness officer. Plus, Thomas takes Nicole— and now, you— through a mindfulness exercise that will help you reduce stress.

One of the most stressful periods of my life was when I was in credit card debt. I got to a point where I just knew that I had to get it under control for my financial future and also for my mental health. We've all hit a point where we've realized it was time to make some serious money moves. So take control of your finances by using a Chime checking account with features like no maintenance fees, fee-free overdraft up to $200, or getting paid up to two days early with direct deposit. Learn more at Chime.com slash MNN. When you check out Chime, you'll see that you can overdraft up to $200 with no fees. If you're an OG listener, you know about my infamous $35 overdraft fee that

I got from buying a $7 latte and how I am still very fired up about it. If I had Chime back then, that wouldn't even be a story. Make your fall finances a little greener by working toward your financial goals with Chime. Open your account in just two minutes at Chime.com slash MNN. That's Chime.com slash MNN. Chime. Feels like progress. Banking services and debit card provided by the Bancorp Bank N.A. or Stride Bank N.A. Members FDIC. SpotMe eligibility requirements and overdraft limits apply. Boosts are available to eligible Chime members enrolled in SpotMe and are subject to monthly limits. Terms and conditions apply. Go to Chime.com slash disclosures for details.

I love hosting on Airbnb. It's a great way to bring in some extra cash, but I totally get it that it might sound overwhelming to start or even too complicated if, say, you want to put your summer home in Maine on Airbnb, but you live full time in San Francisco and you can't go to Maine every time you need to change sheets for your guests or something like that. If thoughts like these have been holding you back, I have great news for you. Airbnb has launched a co-host network, which is a network of high quality local co-hosts with Airbnb experience that can take care of your home and your guests. Co-hosts can do what you don't have time for, like managing your

reservations, messaging your guests, giving support at the property, or even create your listing for you. I always want to line up a reservation for my house when I'm traveling for work, but sometimes I just don't get around to it because getting ready to travel always feels like a scramble, so I don't end up making time to make my house look guest-friendly. I guess that's the best way to put it. But I'm matching with a co-host so I can still make that extra cash while also making it easy on myself. Find a co-host at Airbnb.com slash host. I'm Nicole Lappin, the only financial expert you don't need a dictionary to understand. It's time for some money rehab. In recent years, there has been significant conversation about burnout and how to beat it.

From those conversations, we know that mindfulness has a place in our work, but how literal should that be? According to Thomas Droge, the chief mindfulness officer at Tiffin, it should be pretty literal. Today, I talked to Thomas about why we all need a mindfulness officer. And at the end of our conversation, Thomas takes me, and now you, through a mindfulness exercise he does with top execs. The exercise is designed to help us see a situation clearly without stress or anxiety. So be sure to listen to this until the end, because this is a great exercise to have in your back pocket the next time stress strikes. And it always does. So here's Thomas. Thomas Droge, welcome to Money Rehab.

Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here. It is a pleasure to have you. And I'm excited to hear more about your role. You are the CMO at Tiffin. Typically, when we talk about CMOs, we talk about chief marketing officers, but that is not your M. That is not my M. What is CMOs down for for you? Chief mindfulness officer. That sounds amazing. I would love to know

everything about that. So first of all, what does that mean? It's interesting. I think so far in the world, I'm the only one that I can find anyway. But my whole mission in creating this role was to make a model that other companies could use to put this kind of a role into every C-suite and every company across the planet is my mission, I guess. And what it really is, is this kind of combination of sure mindfulness-based practices and understanding of neuroscience, but also a lot of strategic and performance alliances as well. So I do everything from taking a group through 60 to 90 seconds of meditation before every meeting. And then I also listen to how people are performing in the meeting, what kind of strategy the company is using, what kind of messages people are trying

to communicate and how well they're doing it and where they're missing or where they're nailing it so that I can help them perform. And then that sort of blends into a general sort of executive coach performance kind of role as well. Yeah, I mean, that makes sense. And it sounds super cool. And I am with you that this type of role should be in many C-suites, if not all. I'm really surprised, though. It doesn't make sense to me that no other company has that. All the Silicon Valley companies, even back when Steve Jobs had a guru, what did he have? He had a guru.

On staff, right? Yeah, on staff. I think there are lots of variations on the theme. I don't think what I'm doing is something that in one form or another doesn't occur. But the question that I asked myself was, oh, could we actually define this role as like, what skill sets are necessary for you to deliver it? There's a very simple saying, in order to know the world, you have to know yourself. Because if you don't know yourself, you can't parse out what's you and what's not you to understand the world more clearly. So all the work I do is basically around self-awareness within this target of highly pressurized startup performance companies right now. And I think it's particularly interesting to do it in a place like Tiffin because this is like an intense driven financial tech company

and everyone's like how do you get people mindful in that environment and it's like well actually these tools make people better and happier in their lives here and they perform better and faster because of it mindfulness isn't this fuzzy thing that means sit around all day and look at your toes, right? It's like, oh, who am I? What am I doing here? How can I be here and show up 100%? In order to do that, you've got to know who you are and what you're doing. So let's talk more about those tools and let's get granular with the framework. Can you explain what your day-to-day is as a chief mindfulness officer? It just sounds crazy, doesn't it? Yeah, a little bit, but the best kind of crazy. Yeah, so my day can run from 6 a.m. at the founder's house doing Qigong practice before we start the day. Wait, what practice?

So Qigong is like a embodied movement practice, kind of like Tai Chi, but it's wellness-based and it's rooted in Taoist traditions, which are similar to Buddhist traditions. And it's basically a movement, breathing, and attention practice to get your body aligned and ready to go for the day. Kind of like a morning yoga, just different. But we'll often meet and, you know, we'll be there before the sun rises and it'll come up as we're practicing. And at seven, we'll separate and then I'll see him back at the office at 830 or whatever it is. So it might start with that. And then I'll often do one-on-ones with a lot of the executive team and rising stars. And I think that's one of the biggest things I learned here was that the organism of a company, which is made up of all these smaller

parts, still has to function in two ways. It has to serve the needs of the individual and it has to serve the needs of the larger company it has to serve the needs of the larger company. And when you look at sort of harmony and sustainability, they're all built on this ecosystem model and that's where companies do the best. How did you figure that out? What were you doing before this? What makes you singularly qualified to be chief mindfulness officer? So I was a alternative medicine doctor for 25 years in New York. I had a medical practice in Midtown and I spent a lot of time training doctors in

Western medicine to understand how to use these principles as they're operating. And I treated a lot of patients and I was the alternative medicine director for this cancer center. And I basically spent 25 to 30 years working with individuals. And at some point, it became very, very clear to me that if I could reach their thought process and their emotional content and teach them how that connects to their body, that I could keep them from going far enough out of balance that it turns into what we would call illness, right? And so I opened a movement studio in Tribeca, and actually the founder of this company came to me one day out of the blue on a recommendation, I don't know, four or five years ago in New York and said, I've been working with this coach who says there are these four things

that are critical, journaling, meditation, solo time in nature, and Qigong, which is this mindfulness movement practice. And he came to me to study Qigong and that's how we started connecting. And so he became the founder of Tiffin. And eventually I started working with the leadership group here and everything. And then I eventually said to him one day about a year and a half ago, hey, I think we should create this role and build this into the organization. And I explained everything logically around why I think that's such a good idea. And then in all caps in the bottom of the email, I just said, but my heart says, let's do this. And I think 20 minutes later, he emailed me back and said,

let's do it. And 18 months later, I think we've really seen a pretty profound effect on how people operate, how they communicate, how they function, how they feel, how they treat each other. That's been really rewarding for me. So you have regular sessions with executives, the entire employee base? Do you have your office door open? Is it like the resident shrink of sorts? I'm trying to imagine what the formula is. Who are you? I mean, for a long time, I used to describe it as Wendy from Billions. And for a long time, I used to describe it as Wendy from Billions. Oh, I was more thinking of Lucy and Snoopy. The doctor is in type thing, but your analogy is better.

Wendy and Billions. Okay. In the early seasons before she went really sideways. One of the things we realized was that it's important that I work with the leadership team and it's important that I work with people who are being recognized for driving themselves and being rising stars and really contributing because we want to move them on a growth path. I don't work with the whole company one-on-one. I just work with those people one-on-one. So it's not like the resident shrink. And I think that took me a long time because the founder was like, you can't talk to everybody. There's too many people. You don't

have enough time. We need you at high impact. We don't need you talking to everybody. We need you talking to the leaders because then they can amplify the signal through their teams and the culture starts to build a behavior. And that's crucial. Can you just define mindfulness? We've all heard of mindfulness, but might not be able to articulate it. of mindfulness, but might not be able to articulate it. So all it really means is being able to pay attention to the present moment and what you're doing through as many or all of your senses in real time.

I like your definition. And I think of it as paying attention to what you're paying attention to. That's a great way to say it, actually. I like that quite a bit. Okay. Do you need an apprentice? For people who are ambitious and busy and stressed, what are your specific routines or behaviors or practices that you recommend they integrate into their everyday life?

And by the way, these practices, my favorite part of all of this is that it's my favorite price. It's free. Yeah. I think one of the struggles that we have as humans living in especially a consumer society is that we want the next best thing in the magic bullet. And so we keep adopting lots of things and trying them out for a little while. So I think the first piece is

when you're thinking about any kind of practice, what do you like to do? How much are you going to commit that feels right to you and be honest with yourself about those things? So like when I take people into meditation, I'll often start them if they've never meditated before with what's called non-sleep deep rest, which is a 20 minute guided practice that allows someone to go into the value proposition of meditation, right? Downregulate the nervous system, clear the mind, rest the body, regenerate without them having to sit upright and find bliss, which is a much more challenging concept. So I'll often start them there and it'll often lead to meditation or that'll be enough

because they'll get the benefit they need. So be honest with yourself about what you're willing to do, what you want to do, and how you like to do things because your practices should fit into those spaces or they won't stay with you. And then with my teams, very simple things that I teach them are you have circadian rhythms. There's times when you need to sleep. There's times of day when you're at your peak energy. There's times of day when you need to take a break. And we know adrenaline rising and cortisol rising and cortisol descending all happen in relationship to take a break. And we know adrenaline rising and cortisol rising and cortisol descending all happen in relationship to your sleep cycle. So if you want to optimize your work and your ability to do it, then track your time for a week and know where your peak energy is.

Wherever your peak energy is, is where your peak mitochondria availability is. That's your powerhouse of the cell. Mitochondria is directly linked to willpower. So you pick the things that you hate doing or that are really hard, and those go into that slot of when you have the most energy. I mean, for everybody, it's different, but isn't it supposed to be something like the midpoint of the time you fall asleep to the time you wake up plus 12. So if you go to bed at nine and you wake up at 12 midnight plus 12 at noon is supposed to be the time where you lull. Yeah, I don't actually know the math on that. That's interesting. But I think people are different. And especially in the media environment that we all live in, the circadian cycles are thrown off by sunlight and electrical light at night. So, again, I like to have people track it themselves.

But sure, it's somewhere between when you wake up in the morning. For a lot of people, the sort of 6 to 9 a.m. or 6 to 8 a.m. or for some people it's 9 to 11 a.m. is this peak window where they have the most energy. And I tell them like, okay, go and do the things that you hate to do that you know you have to get done today because it's going to be off your plate and you're going to have the energy to do it. Or do the most complicated task because you're going to be able to think most efficiently. Then notice how the rest of your day is going. because you're going to be able to think most efficiently. Then notice how the rest of your day is going.

So it sounds like you recommend whatever somebody is going to stick to, which I often do with finances too. I don't care what app you use. My favorite app for you is the one that you will actually continue to use. Oftentimes we bite off more than we can chew or like we make these big proclamations that we're going to meditate, you know, 30 minutes a day or I have supplements that I think I'm going to take all the time and I've taken them for five days and then the full bottle is basically of turmeric or I don't even know whatever supplements is like sitting in my shelf because I got over it. I was gung-ho about it. And then, so it sounds like starting small and

with something that you can stick to is better than getting really, really ambitious about it. Yeah. I mean, I think you just said something really interesting. And by the way, I'm exactly there with you on the five days of supplements and then I don't go back to them. I think we've all been there. Yeah. you on the five days of supplements and then I don't go back to them. I think we've all been there. Yeah. Yeah. But what you said was when we're suffering, right? When there's pain, we're motivated and we're often extremely motivated because we're unhappier in pain or whatever it is. And so we dive into this extreme response. But then when we're out of pain,

we no longer have the motivation that we had to do that level of commitment, right? So understanding what you think can carry on is really important. But even more important is to start these practices when there is no particular pain point that's driving you. Oh, 100%. I am most proud in my mental health maintenance, I suppose, that I go to therapy religiously every Friday at 10am, whether something is going on or not. And in the past, I would use it as a triage method, like when shit was getting really bananas, I would go and do the things because that's typically how we approach this. We're reactive versus proactive. We rarely put good stuff in the bank when it's not an emergency. And so, yeah, sticking to something when it's not in dire straits is hard to do, but

a really great investment in your future self. Yeah, I think the therapy analogy is actually one of the best ones because somewhere along the way, and this is a big piece of what I try to teach people, the ROI of doing therapy converted from you having to fix something that was broken to, oh, I could never be broken again. And I know that's a very simplistic view of therapy, but I think it's important to understand that the maintenance of something over time converts in its value for you. And these practices are all like that. That's why it has to be something that you're either curious about or it fits into your schedule or you want to do it or something like that. Otherwise, it won't stay when you're not in pain. Yeah. Well, now you're talking my language, the ROI and the conversion.

I mean, come on now. I do work in a finance company. Have you found yourself using more finance jargon when explaining mindfulness practices? I mean, it was always very important to me that everything I taught was from our world and not some mystery fantasy thing that a person in red robes could teach you if you climb the mountain. But that it was, hey, this is a practice. This is what it does. This is how you use it. Yes, it comes from, sure, I dove deep and apprenticed and was an adept in Taoism and deep student of Buddhism. But these technologies are the technologies that come out of self-awareness practices that naturally evolve in those kinds of ancient religions in every indigenous tradition around

the world. That's because they work. Yeah, but it's hard to like go chill in an ashram all day and get stuff done, right? What I found to be the most challenging thing when I was teaching myself a lot of these practices was it's all well and good when you're sitting at Miraval in equine therapy and not working, right? Or like hanging out in Bali with a hundred-year-old healer and totally off the grid. But like, how do you incorporate that type of stuff when you're really stressed out and you're working all the time? And how do you take that and put it into real life? I think a lot of these

practices that I've studied are like, yeah, yeah, I'll totally do that when I get stressed or I'll do this exercise. But then the real final test is actually incorporating that into real life when those stressors happen. That's when it really matters. It's easy to do it sitting in India in a silent meditation retreat. It's harder to do it in the thick of the fintech hustle and bustle. Yeah. I mean mean i remember in our studio we shared a floor with the yoga studio and i would see all these people come in and they would do all these things for this yoga studio and then they would come out and be like mean to the person at the front desk and i was like oh we need to translate that off the mat right like that became

like a big movement in yoga was like take this off off the mat, put it into your life, not just in this room. And I think one of the things you just said is a deep component in what's called intentional change theory, which is this idea around how we change. And one of the things that we've learned is that in order to change, you have to have this ideal of what you're striving for, and you're going to get all your dopamine from thinking about it.

I want to be this kind of person, right? Or I want to do this thing. And then you have to have this kind of reckoning moment of, well, this is where I'm at. And then you build a pathway. Okay, I'm going to try this practice. And the piece that is critical in those moments is that you need an accountability partner or a community or something that's going to keep you on track long enough for you to build a habit or a behavior or get to the ROI side, right? Hit your conversion hour, like how many

hours does it take to reach conversion, right? And I think that's a big piece of what I do here. On Wednesdays at 12 o'clock, everybody stops working and we all start either meditating or jumping around and doing some kind of practice. And we do it right in the middle of the office. And you can't stay and work at your computer. You got to jump in. And sometimes you really don't want to, but afterwards everyone's like, oh God, I really needed that. But mindfulness isn't just helpful for our attitudes around work, right?

Thomas, it's also helpful for our attitudes about money. Yeah. I mean, money, talk about an emotional word. We live in a capitalist system. The first thing everyone should be learning is how to thrive in this system. If our jungle is capitalism, then we should learn how to live well in this jungle. But I think oftentimes we don't. I know I didn't. And then at some point, beasts started coming out of the jungle in the forms of student loan debt. And all of a sudden I thought, oh, I don't even know how to get around in this jungle. So yeah, these techniques can help you to understand like, oh, if I know that I'm going to look at a tax bill and it's going to put me into amygdala hijack, which means that- Fight or flight. Fight or flight or freeze, right? Freeze, yep.

And then I'm going to make some kind of a rational decision based on that, which is probably to run away. And that's not going to work for me. Even with my partner, we make appointments with each other to talk about money because it's so stressful for us. And oftentimes, you know, we talk about energy, but a simple way to understand energy is if I'm feeling anxious about something, if I say it to my partner, I'm kind of discharging it to her. And then she has to carry

the weight of that, which of course ups her anxiety a little bit. We make a plan to have that conversation and we set goals around what that conversation's about. We feel good at the end of it versus a little bit traumatized if you just kind of wing one at the other person when they're not looking. Do you have a little agenda that you guys follow? We do it on Saturday mornings. Every Saturday morning? No, but when we do it, we do it on Saturday mornings. And we do it outside of the house

in a neutral space that has something that we like. So it might be breakfast or coffee or a park or whatever it is. And then we have an agenda before that of what's our goal? What's the thing we're going to try to get out of this conversation? And we don't stray from whatever the topic's going to be. And that seems to be the biggest thing because in the past, someone would be upset, resentful, angry, scared, whatever the emotional content was that was driving whatever that experience of some kind of financial issue. And once we put that level of constraints on it, we actually started to re-identify the experience as we're having a kind of proud of us moment that we can talk about money without going after each other or being terrified and

we can actually build something. And it made it something that we were happy to do instead of terrified of. I mean, I think that's what mindfulness does when it comes to money matters. It's also what AI does when it comes to money matters. It takes this crazy emotion out of it. Money is a mindfuck, whether you have it or you don't, or you had it or you money matters. Like it takes this crazy emotion out of it. Money is a mind fuck, whether you have it or you don't, or you had it or you didn't. And there's so much tied into financial trauma and all of that stuff.

So I think in the same way that AI takes the emotions out of buy low, sell high, because that's the opposite of what you want to do, your impetus is to do is to buy high and sell low. I think the same thing happens when you employ mindfulness tactics. And one of the things you do is guide your team through some of these exercises. So if you don't mind, I would love if you took me through and our listeners through one of those exercises that could help us at work. I'd love to.

Hold on to your wallets. Money Rehab will be right back. One of the most stressful periods of my life was when I was in credit card debt. I got to a point where I just knew that I had to get it under control for my financial future and also for my mental health. We've all hit a point where we've realized it was time to make some serious money moves. So take control of your finances by using a Chime checking account with features like no maintenance fees, fee-free overdraft up to $200, or getting paid up to two days early with direct deposit. Learn more at Chime.com slash MNN. When you check out Chime, you'll see that you can overdraft up to $200 with no fees. If you're an OG listener, you know about my infamous $35

overdraft fee that I got from buying a $7 latte and how I am still very fired up about it. If I had Chime back then, that wouldn't even be a story. Make your fall finances a little greener by working toward your financial goals with Chime. Open your account in just two minutes at Chime.com slash MNN. That's Chime.com slash MNN. Chime feels like progress. Banking services and debit card provided by the Bancorp Bank N.A. or Stride Bank N.A. Members FDIC. SpotMe eligibility requirements and overdraft limits apply. Boosts are available to eligible Chime members enrolled in SpotMe and are subject to monthly limits. Terms and conditions apply. Go to chime.com slash disclosures for details. I love hosting on Airbnb. It's a great way to bring in some

extra cash, but I totally get it that it might sound overwhelming to start or even too complicated if, say, you want to put your summer home in Maine on Airbnb, but you live full time in San Francisco and you can't go to Maine every time you need to change sheets for your guests or something like that. If thoughts like these have been holding you back, I have great news for you. Airbnb has launched a co-host network, which is a network of high quality local co-hosts with Airbnb experience that can take care of your home and your guests. Co-hosts can do what you don't have time for, like managing your reservations, messaging your guests, giving support at the property, or even create your listing for you. I always want to line up a reservation for my house when I'm traveling

for work, but sometimes I just don't get around to it because getting ready to travel always feels like a scramble, so I don't end up making time to make my house look guest-friendly. I guess that's the best way to put it. But I'm matching with a co-host, so I can still make that extra cash while also making it easy on myself. Find a co-host at airbnb.com slash host. And now for some more money rehab. So this is a practice called, for lack of a better word, it's called the neutralization practice. And one of the most critical things that we learn when we start doing mindfulness practices is that we experience our thoughts as reality. And what that means is that our senses take in information all the time

around us. Door, reach for handle, pull, walk through, dog, barking, step back, jump left. We take in all this information and it's critical for our survival and our ability to thrive. We take in all this information and it's critical for our survival and our ability to thrive. And it's translated, the sensory data is translated into thoughts that are, again, our software coding for the hardware. And the thoughts tell us what reality is. But at some point, this merging happens where we believe that our thoughts tell us what reality is all the time, but it doesn't take into account the fact that we have an imagination and that like AI, which is modeled after our own brains, we can predict models of the future and then test them by walking through the future. And we can regret or fear things that have happened to us in the past.

And so this practice is about taking a really charged question that you're dealing with and building these two basically piles of thoughts on either side of it until you reach a point where you hit a kind of neutral tone. So it's an ancient technique to neutralize fear and desire and put you in the present. So we's an ancient technique to neutralize fear and desire and put you in the present. So we're going to do that. Sign me up. My test subject, right? So you have to use something that's real. So think about a question and you don't have to reveal what the question is, but think about a question that you're struggling with that you're either really want or really don't want.

Okay. Got it? Got it. Okay. Got it? Got it. So close your eyes. Feet on the ground, hands in your lap or wherever they're comfortable. Let your body get comfortable.

And with your mouth closed, start to cycle the breath through your nose. You're no stranger to these practices. So breathing in, feel your abdomen expand, your chest expand. As you exhale, feel the tension drain down out of your body. We'll take a couple of breaths like this. As you keep breathing, drawing in oxygen, breathing in life, exhaling, tension draining down from your head and neck, through your torso, down through your abdomen and hips,

through your legs, down your feet, toes, and the tension in your shoulders draining through your arms, pouring down like water draining off the side of a mountain, down through your fingertips. As you're feeling your body calm and supported in the chair, come into the practice. Take that question or problem you had at the beginning, and I want you to visualize it at the center of your forehead.

Hold it clear there in your mind's eye. And then keeping your eyes closed, go into your left visual field. As though you were looking through your left eye, but it's closed. You're going to make a list, starting at the top of this list with the heading Why this is the worst thing that could ever happen to me. And literally

in your mind's eye, in the left visual field you start writing down all the reasons why this is the worst thing that could ever happen to you it's usually pretty easy to do this list but as you're going through it push past all the normal reasons that you normally come to and see if you can dig deeper into even the worst-case scenarios of why this would be the worst thing that could ever happen to you. About 30 more seconds. As you're writing all these things in your mind's eye,

maybe you notice the feelings that are going with that. As you're writing all these things in your mind's eye, maybe you notice the feelings that are going with that. Maybe there's heaviness or fear or constraint. Finishing that list on the left and just keeping it there in the left visual field, come to the center again, question or the problem. And now we go into the right visual field, one of your right eye. And we start at the top of the header, why this is the best thing that could ever happen

to me. And just make a note that usually as you start making this list and then keep pushing and look for ways in which this could be the best thing that ever happened to you. Let your creativity and your curiosity push into this question of why it could be the best thing that ever happened to you. Maybe you've reached the end of that list and you feel satisfied.

I want you to push a little more. What else could you find? A totally unforeseen, unpredictable outcome of why this could be the best thing that ever happened to you. And then finishing up the list, bring your attention back to the center, to this question or problem at the third eye, center of your forehead. feeling an awareness that all of the thoughts on either to the left or the right side are all of your memories and your predictions

your desires and your fears and as you exhale imagine both of those lists on the left and right just turning to dust and blowing away in the wind all of your thoughts attachments around this single idea. And back to this center question.

And as you ask this question again, without all of those futures and pasts, what's the feeling you have in your body, the way that you want to engage what's the who of you come into this question and take another deep breath in through the nose, out through the mouth. Lay your feet on the ground, your hands in your lap,

body relaxed and open. Get your mind clear. Question the center of your forehead. Drift into the wind wind also turning dust and your next breath in as you breathe in slowly open your eyes i'm gonna fall asleep i'll say that a lot but they're gonna fall asleep i mean so you usually have people write down sort of what they experienced, but I think for the group, it's more valuable for you to actually just share if you noticed anything. Did you notice anything? helpful to visualize these thoughts as if they are in your mind's eye and in a particular way versus just being all jumbled in your mind. You're like, it's just so overwhelming.

I think of it sometimes too with my thoughts as like logs down a stream and I see them and I'm like, yo, nice to see you rumination. And so it's helpful to list out when problems, issues, big questions feel really overwhelming and chaotic. So that brings me a lot of clarity and calm. Yeah, that's good. I think for this practice, the goal I usually have for people is once you realize that most of the feelings that you're having are built on these predictions of either fears and desires or both, you're left in a kind of neutral space. Let me explain through an example. It's probably easier. So oftentimes I would come out to Tiffin in the early days and I would do like a three-hour class. And before I did my three-hour class, I would come out to Tiffin in the early days and I would do like a three-hour class.

And before I did my three-hour class, I would sit and do this meditation. And I had a tremendous desire for it to have huge impact and be incredibly valuable and a terrible fear that it would be horrible and nobody would get it and it would just be a waste of time. At the end of that neutral experience, what you land on is, oh, there's just me bringing what I can of me into this room or this group or this task right now. And that's the only thing that actually is here. I think once you're in that situation, there's a freedom to be yourself. That's the best person to be. It's the only real person to be yourself. That's the best person to be. It's the only real person to be. Money Rehab is a production of Money News Network. I'm your host, Nicole Lappin. Money Rehab's executive producer is Morgan Lavoie. Our researcher is Emily Holmes.

Do you need some money rehab? And let's be honest, we all do. So email us your money questions, moneyrehab at moneynewsnetwork.com to potentially have your questions answered on the show or even have a one-on-one intervention with me. And follow us on Instagram at moneynews and TikTok at moneynewsnetwork for exclusive video content. And lastly, thank you. No, seriously, thank you. Thank you for listening and for investing in yourself, which is the most important investment you can make.