Written by: Santosh Naidu, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
Namaste, Hola, Greetings, Halo!
Trust everyone reading is vaccinated, safe and well — prayers for everyone’s wellbeing.
What do you think of the headline picture?
I was trying to get innovative with the angles of my library and at the same time use the various words in this picture to create a narrative from the random.
Take a look at that picture again and see how many words you can come up with a second, third time around. You will be surprised that the more times you repeat, the more number of words your brain spots.
That's how I conduct most of my coaching sessions, subtly pushing and prodding my clients to see beyond the usual, to spot patterns or order from chaos or see the picture in the picture or see beyond the usual, build focus, encouraging various points of view that will help get over binary thinking, explore and take cognizance of all that is being presented to us to experience every living moment.
"Also, I am on a new mission as a co-founder of an AI-based app which will help those silently suffering from mental health issues."
An output of over 5 decades of collective experience in the fields of clinical psychiatry and modern coaching methodology, our objective is to help people lead fulfilling lives. The app is being beta tested now.
Back to the subject of this article, Wellbeing – What Is It? Have you spotted the book in the headline pic? This is my copy from 2010 when Gallup first came up with this publication on what it takes to lead a good life, the five essential elements that constitute our life holistically and when aptly measured deduce the state of our existence as Thriving, Struggling, or Suffering.
The five elements are:
Career Wellbeing
Financial Wellbeing
Physical Wellbeing
Social Wellbeing
Community Wellbeing
When I first read the book in Oct 2010, I was sure that I was struggling or suffering and realized that I needed to work much harder to Thrive as per Gallup's definition, especially on physical, career, and social aspects because of my habits. I was physically fine, going to the gym 5 days a week, but certain habits and lifestyle I settled into, along with leading a regional team in a global investment bank, were building a distance between me and my long-term wellbeing. It was imperative I needed to act.
"Making lifestyle changes or overcoming certain habits continues to be a challenge for many in this day and age."
Over the years, I made certain changes, and I still felt that I am still struggling and not 100%. Mind you, I have not taken any assessment to measure what my state is, but that’s how I felt in my gut.
Thus began a new project to be honest with myself, introspect, learn from what’s not working, practice my coaching tools and begin afresh. It included restarting spiritual practices from my childhood but not where I left off but started as a beginner and, to my utter surprise, started feeling the positive change in about a few months. The pandemic impacted my business, too, but I was able to start a new habit, writing, and today I am writing to you. With confidence, you can take strategic risks, ideate, and innovate.
“Felt a certain kind of buoyancy, increased confidence about myself.”
The changes that made the difference included changing my job(s), stopping some old habits, relearning some practices, started new relationships and habits, which in effect redefined my unique formula.
To the Gallup list, I add more elements:
Spiritual Wellbeing
Mental Wellbeing; and
my response (my unique formula)
One can ask what the difference between mental and spiritual is. Well, I can define it for you, but in a spirit of creativity, and in the short term, I encourage you to define it for yourselves
And the next element was an added measure of “my response,” meaning it’s not about making changes only but also factoring in how am I responding to the change, the people, situations, or places consciously or sub-consciously so that I can sustain the change for better
Let’s assess the baseline prefixing the following questions with, Do I:
suffer from anxiety, anger, insecurity, prejudices, bias, or prone to emotional outbursts?
feel threatened in the presence of a few people?
feel safe, calm, and content in certain settings?
leave people better feeling than how I would find them?
radiate an energy that is warm, human, and caring? etc.
The measure of how I am responding to life was a significant finding in my research because we are so used to getting measured by external sources, most of our responses are influenced by what others think or say.
What I emphasize here is to focus on the internal causes, the voice within, what it's telling me that needs to be acknowledged and acted on to thrive.
In the words of Daniel Goleman,
“The benefits of mindfulness and meditation are not exclusive to what you experience while doing it, it extends how you move through life.”
Fast forward to now, and I make the following points:
The measure of looking inward is a critical measure to develop our wellbeing.
The impact of the pandemic is unprecedented on the global business landscape. Therefore, it’s critical for organizational processes to prioritize employee wellbeing metrics and ensure the psychological safety of employees working from remote locations.
Physical wellbeing stood out as the most significant because you can experience it across other elements when you have a life, but without it, what's the point. Those who had existing comorbidities were dropping like tenpins, and this has put brought the focus back on our lifestyles and habits.
Even healthy people got infected by the virus when they went to get themselves checked in a hospital, which begs the question:
"How do I determine my physical health?"
As per the ancient Indian practice of Ayurveda, one could measure based on these 8 parameters:
timely bowel movements every morning w/o medication
no excess weight
clear skin
feeling energetic throughout the day
strong sense of hunger at least twice a day
no body part is aching or calling out for attention
getting a good night sleep
experiencing positive thoughts
"And what you eat influences what you think."
Nutrition impacts both physical and mental health performance and a very important consideration. Hence I ask again,
"How do you measure your life?"
Following are a set of interesting questions the Native Americans asked of the sick:
When was the last time you sang?
When was the last time you danced?
When was the last time you told your story?
One of the reasons I use the Native Americans' example is because they never cared about financial wellbeing. They were most adept at a symbiotic relationship with nature. Wealth or lack of it is more a cause for mental health issues in the present day than an independent measure by itself that impacts our wellbeing.
Moving on to career wellbeing, one aspect everyone recognizes is job satisfaction and its cascading impact on all other elements of wellbeing. A lack of a livelihood can be very stressful that can cause suffering and lead to other undesired consequences.
Employees, when placed in roles based on their talents, where bosses are coaches, are recognized for their contribution at work are proven to be more engaged and productive.
Organizations perform at excellence when internal customers feel good about themselves.
Just when we thought we had it all covered comes an interesting stat:
Employees engaged but not thriving have a 61% higher rate of burnout often or always
68% of the global population is not Thriving.
43% of employees experience stress globally, up 30% from a decade ago
75% of suicides are male.
Therefore based on my experience and research, I need to submit that it is a combination of problem identification, accurate measurement, and analysis combined with our own unique ability to execute that should help us overcome challenges. That unique ability becomes a ‘winning formula’ as a blend of talents, self-awareness, emotional intelligence, derail factors, lessons from experience, etc., that help us deal with various curveballs of life.
The AI-based app we developed will help with problem identification, and the bespoke coaching mechanism will help in accurate measurement, analysis, and psychometrics will help develop implementation plans to embark on your wellbeing journey. This does not happen overnight but needs determination, discipline, and persistence.
Over the next few months, I hope to reveal more about these elements in my own ubiquitous way but in the meanwhile need to ask you, the reader, about what you think of the factors I describe and the significance of those in your life.
Are you thriving, struggling, or suffering?
A few additional questions to ponder:
When ill, do you go to a doctor or resort to self-medication?
What does your fitness routine include?
What are you doing for your career wellbeing, crisis vs. opportunity, pivoting strategies, talent discovery?
What are you doing about the mental health of your children who are under tremendous pressure due to education/examinations?
What change(headline pic) have you made post-pandemic with your lifestyle?
What new habits have you started that will help your wellbeing?
What change are you making at home to promote harmony?
What is your measure of mental health?
These are indicative questions and the idea to improve awareness and make informed judgments about health and wellbeing.
My programs will help you with identifying those issues and working with you to develop your unique formula that should get your learning started.
Contest alert: All those who can pick >8 words from the headline picture and match them with words in the body of the article will stand to gain a 15% discount on my personalized coaching programs for successful sign-ups in July and August 2021. T&C apply
Let’s bounce back from the pandemic.
As Rafa Nadal says — Vamos!
Coach Santosh Naidu
Santosh Naidu, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Santosh Naidu is a Management Consultant and a Brainpower Coach with over two decades of international experience across Asia, N America, and Europe. At the turn of the century, he was employed with GE Capital, IBM, and Fidelity Investments and, in his last role, was heading HR S Operations Excellence for the APAC region at Deutsche bank group. He has been running his consulting and coaching practice for the last 10 years under the brand name santhnaidu®.
His objective is to facilitate relevant change and human wellbeing. He is excited about solving some of the most pressing problems, such as unemployment, mental health issues, and climate change. He is well known in industry circles for taking a stand on unethical practices. Over the years, he invested in treehouse building, soil rejuvenation and loves playing his part in innovating sustainability solutions.
As a brainpower and strengths coach, he ensures wellbeing for his clients by diagnosing and addressing various issues impacting the modern populace. This is done by using credible surveys, credible APPs, and coaching methodologies. His unique coaching approach helps clients' spot causes affecting them, especially after the recent pandemic where many are struggling and suffering silently.
Be it physical, mental, career, social, or community aspects, his unique coaching formula addresses most lifestyle aspects by helping his clients build strengths from natural talents, gain confidence from physical, mental, and nutritional methods to sustain the changes they make to successfully thrive.
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