S4E15: From Pressure to Peace - Brian Reich on Mindfulness and Remembering to Just Breathe

About Brian Reich in his own words:

I don’t regret it. I worked hard. I played hard. But looking back, I can see it was just a little too much.

For more than three decades, I worked in the high-pressure world of automotive manufacturing. I led teams, hit deadlines, and managed stress—or so I thought. Then on December 12, 2019, everything changed. Lying on a hospital table, I had to face the toll my lifestyle had taken. That was the wake-up call. I chose a different path.

At first the plan was simple: eat better, move more, sleep well. That’s it. Then something deeper emerged. Mindfulness, meditation, and awareness weren’t part of the plan. But they became the foundation. What began as physical recovery turned into a reset in how I live, think, and show up.

These days I live by four pillars of health: nutrition, movement, rest, and cognitive awareness. In a world that moves fast and rewards distraction, the most important thing we can do is slow down and pay attention. Awareness isn't extra. It’s essential.

That’s what The Unscripted Mind is about. Not a brand or concept. A way of being. A quiet refusal to be programmed by culture, by algorithms, or by conditioning. Staying human in a world trying to automate us. Becoming a cognitive dissident, one who questions what they’ve been taught, even when it’s comfortable. Especially then.

Now at 60, with a measured biological age just under 50, I’m medication free and learning to live on my own terms. A life grounded in presence, simplicity, and meaningful work.

Find more at just breathe.ghost.io
Contact: justbreathe.rcl@gmail.com
Book: Life in Motion

Interested in connecting?
Brian is open to conversations with aligned podcasts, event organizers, and communities exploring mindful living, leadership, and personal transformation. Reach out to start a dialogue.

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SHOW NOTES

Mindfulness in Life’s Game

Life is like a football game:

• On the field — You're immersed in action, focused only on your position.
• From the sidelines — You pause, take a breath, and see more of the field.
• In the stands — Your perspective expands. You see both teams, the mascots, the crowd. You remember you're part of something larger.

Mindfulness helps you shift between these perspectives:

• A sing

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Transcript

0:44

Did you know that up to 82% of new managers are left completely in the dark, untrained and searching for answers? That lack of preparation doesn't just hurt your new leaders. It holds your entire business back, draining morale and costing you productivity. Stop the clock on bad management. Golden Mean Consulting offers a proven no fluff approach to help your new managers build the right habits from day one. Our co-founders Sonia and Jason have over 20 years of experience in the trenches, so you can trust they know what works. To learn more, visit golden means consulting.com. That's g o ldemeultinggroup.com. Wherever you are on your leadership voyage, it starts here.[Music][Music] Okay, everybody. Happy to be back. Another episode of Leadership Voyage here in season 4. Uh, if you are new to the show, welcome. If you've been listener, uh, you can go in the show notes, you can text me directly or you can send me an email startyouvoyaggmail.com. Um, yeah, that's it. You can find me on LinkedIn, Jason Allen Wick. That's a L len. Basically, reach out however you can and uh let me know what you think about the episodes. Let me know what you think about the um the topics this season or uh maybe you have something to suggest. The vast majority of my guests at this point come from people coming to me. So, don't be shy. It's fine to reach out. I would love to hear from you. And uh you know, you never know what might pop up on this show and help make people's lives better. on leadership voyage where we help people with their pursuit of becoming great leaders and what's better than leading yourself and I talk today with Brian Reich and Brian and I have known each other for about five years he and I were in a leadership group together and he is a self-proclaimed simple guy from Ohio who likes football and so I think that's fantastic because sometimes we get things discussed so academically, so analytically or there are three pillars with four principles and six bullet points and 20 examples that we lose sight of what to do. And today Brian's talking about his own transformational experience with mindfulness. So I really encourage you to stick around for this. You'll learn a lot. You'll have some takeaways. and he's just an affable, likable, nice guy to listen to. So, stick around. Leadership Voyage.[Music] All right, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of Leadership Voyage. I am very, very happy to be here with Brian Reich. Brian, it's really nice to see you today. Jason, great to see you. It's been a long time. It has. Yeah. Yeah. And for listeners, Brian and I were in a leadership group uh that started about 5 years ago, a global leadership group. And um we see each other intermittently, but not uh as regularly as we should. So, it's been great to get caught up before the record button started here. Yeah. Yep. That was great. So, it had been a while. It had been a while. So, we're here today with you, Brian, because um you wrote a book recently and uh it's I just want to tell for everybody out there, it's about mindfulness, about transformation. It's uh it's it's a digestible read. So, definitely we'll we'll get to how you can get access to that book later on, but I'm going to jump right to it, Brian, and I want to ask you about December 12th, 2019. What happened on that day? my favorite day. Yeah. So, I had uh I'm one of those people that I I hate doctors, doctors, dentists, chiropractors. That goes way back to my childhood. I had a lot of I was sick, so I had issues. Anyway, I hadn't gone in for a physical in quite some time. So, back in November of that year, I decided, okay, my wife talked me into going into this physical. You know, it' been four or five years since I'd gone. And at that point in time, I thought,"Okay, I'm going to go in. Everything's going to be the same as it always is." Oh, yeah. My pants are a little tighter than they were back then, so he's probably going to tell me to lose a couple pounds, but okay, whatever. Yeah, that didn't happen. Uh, I went in, you know, the first thing I did was did the double take cuz I haven't been on a a scale in years. I'm like, "Holy crap, I was like 70 pounds overweight." I was shocked as as the whole consultation went on. High blood pressure, high cholesterol after we looked at my blood work, pre-diabetes, couldn't pass a stress test. I was a train wreck. Yeah. They scheduled me for a heart calf on December 12th, 2019. And that freaked me out because I again had issues with hospitals and needles and all of that good stuff. We're going to call it an awakening for a lack of a better term. My rock bottom some people would call it. I I told myself and I remember it plain as day and this is I tell everybody this story a lot. Say wheel me into the operating room and they're getting ready to the heart couch. I just get me through this. Let everything be okay and I'm going to make changes. I promise. I'm going to make changes. I promise I'm going to make changes. Um long story short, the doctor comes in after the examination. And I said, "So, what'd you do? Put in a stent? What' you have to do?" And he says, "No." He says,"We didn't have to do anything." He goes, "At best, you have 5% blockage." So, for a 54 year old person, you're fine. Don't worry about it. Well, I wasn't fine because I had other issues going on, but it was nice to know I didn't have a a pending blockage or heart condition. So, I'd gone back and told my primary care physician. I said,"I'm going to fix this." And she said, uh, she goes, and she was professional. God love her. I'm sure she probably rolled her eyes because she's probably heard that story, you know, a hundred times before. Yeah. So, but she was very nice. She's like, I I understand and that's great. You should work on it. In the meantime, take these blood pressure medicine at least to bring your blood pressure down because it's bad. I said, "Okay, I'll be back in six months." Okay. So, I did what anybody did, what anybody would do, right? I changed my diet. And I hate the word diet, so I'm going to say I changed my nutritional habits. I like that. Yeah. Yep. Because people diet, they think all kinds of stupid stuff, right? Mhm. I started to exercise. I changed my sleep pattern. You know, looking back, I was doing the opposite of all those things at that point in time. And so, I developed what I call four pillars. And I told you the three, right, which was nutrition and exercise and sleep. But the one that I didn't realize and most people don't realize is the cognitive piece or the the mental health piece. Mhm. The mind and the body work simultaneously. They work in connection with each other. If you have a lot of stress and anxiety and frustration and anger, that translates into the body. Yeah. And vice versa. If your body's not in shape, it translates to the brain. And up until two decades ago, three decades ago, we treated the brain or we treated the body. We didn't treat them both. Now we now we're slowly learning some of these things that you know ancient agent they knew 3,000 years ago already. Is that crazy or what? And last time it's coming around last time I checked the brain is part of the body. So you know yeah it's somehow connected. But as I'm studying meditation, picked up my meditation certificate and got deeper into mindfulness and and understanding mindfulness and how it related to awareness. I realized that there's so much stuff out there, book after same thing with leadership, right? book after book after book and it gets confusing and some people think it's woo woo and some people think it's this and some people think it's that and I tried to take all of that I'm a simple guy right I I I as you know right I'm here in Ohio I I I like I like football I like uh I like a nice inch and a half steak and some good glass of bourbon and you know I I'm just a simple guy so I wanted to put that mindfulness piece into a simple format. You can go down whatever rabbit hole you want, but you can take this book and just each chapter is what, three, four pages long. That's it. Yep. I I I focused on simplicity and relatability. I'm I'm hoping people can look at and go, "Oh, that's all I got to do is take a breath and relax a little bit and refocus." Oh, so that all of that medical stuff led to the book which led to just trying to come up with a simple way to relate to the everyday person. That was my goal. Yeah, I appreciate you sharing the the journey you've had. And then kind of the the epiphanies or the light bulbs and the fourth factor beyond um exercise, diet, sleep, and so forth, the mindfulness piece here because yeah, I mean in some circles we talk about it often, but in a lot of circles, as you're pointing out, it's something that's just not really acknowledged. And you explain why you write this book with attention spans short, right? with our uh lots of things pulling uh demanding our attention and our time, something that's digestible and simple is maybe the way to reach someone. And so, thank you for writing the book the way you did. And and I agree, it's it's digestible. It's simple. Not not as a negative. It is simple in terms of a way to process it. Right. And you said you're a guy from Ohio who likes football. So, tell us in the book, by the way, I forgot to mention the name of the book.

It's called Life in Motion: 12:28

Embrace the Now, Thrive Freely. And in this book, uh, Brian, you talk about a metaphor of sorry, the field, the sidelines, and the stands, right? So, talk us walk us through what that means.[Music] Do you know the real reason half your employees are looking to leave? Untrained firsttime managers, you need a way to stop the bleeding, the expensive cycle of disengagement and turnover. It's time to flip the script from surviving to thriving. Let's equip your leaders to build engaged, loyal, and profitable teams. Sign your leaders up for our 6-week new manager boot camp. A hands-on accelerated program to grow and learn with like-minded peers augmented by personalized coaching sessions. No theory, just simple tools that Golden Mean Consulting co-founders Sonia and Jason have used for over 20 years. Ready to invest in your team's success? Secure your spot now at golden means consulting.com/services. That's gem mcconsultinggroup.com/services. Again, it's meant to be a a metaphor that everybody can relate to, and I think anybody can most anybody can relate to any kind of sporting event. We're going to go with football because I'm a big college football guy, which it's college football kicks off again in four weeks, so that's a good thing. Um, well, by the time people hear this, we'll probably be squarely in the middle of the season. We'll see. We could be. Maybe Ohio State will be at the top of the the standings. We'll find out. Hey, they they were national champs last year. We'll do it again. So, we'll see. As you're saying, I try to use a game as a metaphor that relates to life. When when you're a player on a field, we're going to again, we're going to go football. You get incredibly focused on that one position. You worry about that position. You don't worry about the other players. You're not worried about what's going on anywhere else. You are focused on that. And that's and that's we do the same thing at work. We do the same thing as as leaders. We get focused on that one job. We we tend to get caught up in the game. And that's not a bad thing because we have to do that. But if you can through mindfulness, learn to take a breath, learn to start paying attention to some of your thoughts and your feelings and your emotions and take a step back, you'll find yourself on the sidelines. Mhm. And that's not a bad place to be. That's not because you're not a superstar anymore. That's not because you're not you're not being benched in this case. You're not being benched because you did a terrible job. But from that position, you start to see a little more of the game. You start to see three or four more of your teammates that are on the field. You start to see a little more of the defense. You start to see a little more of what's going on. And that time on the sidelines does exactly what it's meant to do. And it allows you to take a breath, to relax, to refocus. Same thing in again going back to to leadership. Same thing in leadership. You can't just plow forward 100%. Your team's not going to take it. Your body's not going to take it. I can attest to that. Your body can't handle that because I used to do that. Mhm. But if you take that a step further and the more you practice mindfulness, the more you practice awareness, the more you become in touch with your immediate surroundings and and your internal feelings and thoughts and emotions and we're all running on autopilot. Yeah, we we've been since we were little kids, we've been taught we've been taught, you know, preachers and teachers and family and friends and the internet and social media and the news and all this stuff has been dumped into our heads. And whether you realize it or not, a lot of times you're running on autopilot. And some of those things that cause you to run on autopilot don't serve you anymore. They don't serve the cause. They don't serve your team. They don't serve your family. And you have to take the time to step back. But if you take that step back one more one more step and all of a sudden you find yourself in the stands. Yeah. I love the metaphor, right? Because we can all relate even if we haven't stood on the sideline. You can picture the vantage point difference. So yeah, take us to take us to the stands. It's pretty far back now. Right. Right. Well, you may start in the first row, but the farther point Right. But the the further back you get, the more you practice. And mindfulness and meditation is no different than exercise. You practice for a couple minutes a day, then it becomes a couple more and it becomes a couple more and it becomes automatic. But I can tell you that once you start down that road, there's never you're not going back. The further back you get in the stance, right, you get that higher perspective, that higher perspective, and suddenly you start to see everything. You see all of your team members, all of the all the defense, all of the offense, all the sidelines on the other side of the field, the the hot dog vendor, the popcorn vendor, the cheerleaders, the mascots, the other people in the stand. And at that point in time, you realize that your actions, your thoughts, your emotions don't just impact you, they impact everything that you see, everything that you're involved in. And you're part of something bigger than yourself. That's a really great way to say it. So to recap it, when you're on the field, you're you're specializing in your position, right? Or you're going through the actions of your life, the executing the work of at your job, whatever that might be. You get a little more perspective on the sidelines. Gives you that opportunity to pause, right? not just be in it, but maybe reflect and also just live in the moment right now as opposed to focusing on execution. And then the farther back you get into the stands, the more perspective you're being given as far as seeing how your actions influence others, what the whole picture is, right? For the sports fans out there, I can't remember what the name of the camera is. Something with 22 in it or the eye in the sky. You see the entire 22 players who are on the field, right? And you don't just see the one person's first person point of view anymore. In this case, it seems to me there's some tension between navigating being on the field and then stepping off. How do you navigate that tension between being fully immersed in doing, living, acting, and kind of stepping back to observe? An important point to make here is that that tension is always going to exist, right? We're always going to you're not going to escape that. and and the the goal between action and observation or being on a field and being in a stands isn't about living in one place or the other. You're not going to be some guru on a mountain and doing nothing but breathing or whatever. all the our goal especially as as as people and friends and family and leadership is to learn and through mindfulness you learn to toggle between the three situations the three perspectives of life's game. There's times you're going to have to dive in and you're going to be in that action and there's times you need to step back, take a breath, observe and see what's going on. So the tension's always there. You you just have to learn to take that breath. You have to take that pause. And you know, I talk a lot I talk a lot about the breath. And when I'm talking to people and you know, I tell people that the breath is it when you're in a meeting, before a meeting, after a meeting, whatever you have going on, it's stressing you out. If you can learn to take a breath, then your perspective, your focus, your thoughts start to change. That's science. You take a deep breath in, a long breath out, and the parasympathetic nervous system starts to kick in. And when that does, your focus starts to shift. Your anxiety starts to drop, your stress starts to drop. And we've all been in that situation, right, where where maybe you've been a little worked up and maybe a friend of yours says, "Hey, will you just take a breath? Just just breathe for a minute." You know, they don't know what they're saying and you really would want to just maybe slap them in the face or something because they said that to you, right? Truth of the matter is if you would just do that, you can relieve that tension, you can relieve that anxiety, and you can refocus. Yeah. Yeah, I love, by the way, I do love that little detail. I I think telling someone to just take a breath is like, you know, dees deescalation techniques gone wrong, right? It's like I feel like I I heard once that they they they teach police officers to like never tell someone to relax, right? Because it it does the opposite, right, when you tell them, "But we're all going through here." And it sounds so darn simple what you're saying, but boy, hours go by in the day and I don't realize it. My shoulders are getting higher or my chest is uh chest is getting tighter, right? Whatever that is, it's it's crazy what it is. And your newsletter for for lack of a or for a plug, a shameless plug, right, is called Just Breathe. Just breathe. Just breathe. Right. So, there's so much to it. We're going to get into some of the kind of the tactical parts of that uh in a second here, but I do want to ask you in the book you talk about chaos because I think a lot of times people have the hardest time coming up with the ways to navigate chaos or their habits break down during chaos, right? Uh you talk about how mindfulness builds resilience. Can you tell us a little bit about that? First off, chaos is inevitable, right? We're we're always gonna have problems. We're going to have good times. We're going to have bad times. The bad times don't last. The good times don't last. We're always going to have some sort of chaos in our life through mindfulness. Once you realize that, and again, that's when you get to step back and and real and re-evaluate the chaos that's going on. Maybe you're overreacting. M maybe that chaos was some of the scripts that you're running from your past that really don't serve that anymore. So yeah, that's where taking that breath, that's where taking that pause gets you to where re really you're still rooted in the chaos when you take that pause and you're not avoiding it. And you have to learn to live another way. You have to learn to live in that chaos and not try to control it and not try to push it down. And that's where mindfulness and mindfulness is just the door to awareness. So awareness can unfold, right? So mindfulness is the act of pausing and taking a breath and awareness is the result, right? Everything starts to unfold. So you start to see the chaos maybe from the sidelines or maybe you're seeing the chaos from the stands because you've stopped and taken that breath. So chaos will always be there. But if you can learn to accept the chaos, your resilience, you start coming back quick. Love it. Because you're talking about these three different perspectives. And as you said earlier, it's not about um living in only one of them, right? you're you're going to be jumping in and out of them. And when there's chaos around us and we're on the field, the reactions are very instinctive. And then when we're on the sidelines or the or in the stands, the there's maybe a whole other way uh that the mindfulness, as you say, opens this door to a different level of awareness. And you talk about awareness in your book as well. So, I'm glad you brought that up. You talk about awareness kind of as a skill. And I don't know that I've ever really thought of it. I mean, I guess it's a soft skill if we talk in kind of business terms. Sure. Right. But can you walk us through a little bit about it? You know, are we born with it? Are we developing it? Is it both? What What do you think about when it comes to awareness? I think I can't remember. Do you have kids? I do. Yeah. Right. Right. And you can remember when they when they were I don't know how old they are, but when they were toddlers. Yeah. Right. At that point in time, you are 100% awareness. You have you have no fear. There's no anxiety. There's no stress. There's no frustration. There's there's not pre-programmed in here. Everybody's your friend. That's that's pure awareness. But as we get older, we go to school and we go to church or we go to synagogue or wherever you go, whatever you do, you start to watch TV, you start to, you know, pay attention to the internet. And we're b I think we're born with awareness. And we've just forgotten how to access it. And that's simply being open and being honest with yourself, getting back to your authentic self, which we talk about so much in in leadership or life in general. We've just forgotten. Taking a breath, taking a pause, practicing a little bit of mindfulness, which is minutes a day um until you get and I could tell you talk about minutes a day. When I first started down the um the fourth pillar, we'll call it the fourth pillar path, right? I started with meditation and man did I hate it. I'm like, this is the stupidest thing I've ever done. But you have to stay with it. You have to exercise it like any kind of muscle. You have to exercise it like uh like you would do anything. And and now I hate it when I don't do it, you know. In fact, I I picked up a certificate in in guided meditation and teaching and facilitating classes because I believe in it that much. And that's all part of the mindfulness and meditation is a tool for mindfulness and mindfulness opens up awareness. And that's why I wrote the book because it gets sounds confusing, but it's not. It's really simple. Well, and I'm sure people who are listening have had experiences with, you know, quote unquote mindfulness, however that looked to them. meditation you pull up as an example here and you know it I love the way that you're just comparing our topics to things that we already all talk about and relate to. So I'm not going to go to a gym and lift 200 pounds on the first day, right? That doesn't happen. So therefore, it's also unrealistic for us to set a goal that says I'm going to meditate for 30 minutes a day and that's my new habit and you're going to sit there for 30 minutes. people can't see me, but you know, sitting in the pose in which your mind is completely blank, right? And that could be frustrating. So, let's talk about it. You said a few minutes a day. I mean, I've definitely heard people who've said, I'm going to meditate every day for however long. And then I've heard other people say, you know what, why don't you just find a way to meditate for one minute? Absolutely. And let's hear what your take is on building a habit that isn't uh intimidating. Yeah, absolutely. We now know that neuroplasticity is a thing. We get in our habits and and those little neurons in your brain all fire the same when you're in the same situations. But through neuroplasticity and through rethinking, through mindfulness, through meditation, you can begin to rewire those habits. And that's what mindfulness does. It starts rewiring some of those habits. You can start it with a minute a day. You can start I say five minutes if you could just take five minutes out of the maybe it's when you first get up in the morning sit take I don't care you don't have to sit on a pillow with your with your fingers you know in a certain position you don't have to sit you know with incense burning or or travel to to bed or whatever people think on the elevator right do it on the elevator focus on your breath a little bit relax those shoulders Take two, three minutes to do that and you will start to rewire your brain. You'll start to re relieve that tension. I tell people do that before you go to a meeting. Shut your computer off, take two, three breaths, go to that meeting. Yeah, there should be a policy in all businesses where there's a mandatory five minute space between all meetings. I I would love I would love to see all businesses create a little I don't care. Take a closet. Yeah. And and put a light and a chair in there. Let somebody go sit for five minutes just to recharge. Y um that that would be that would be awesome. But most businesses don't buy into they say they do, but they don't in the end. Agreed. Um but going back to that, I mean you can practice mindfulness or meditation. Meditation is nothing more than being in the moment. I had a friend of mine, she's like, I I can't I can't meditate. I can't sit still. I can't do that. I'm like, and and she's one of those people, her mind goes 100 goes 100 mile an hour all the time. And I said, let me guess. Let me let me I said, why don't you do that while you're brushing your teeth? She's like, what do you mean? I'm like, let me guess. Let me guess your your process when you brush your teeth. Yep. You put the toothpaste on, you start to brush your teeth. Now all of a sudden, you're checking your hair. Oh, wait. Now you got to go pick your clothes out of the closet. Oh, you got to stop and pet the dog. And all the time, you're still trying to brush your teeth. And then you find out when you go to the dentist that you haven't been brushing your teeth or the take your time to be in the moment. Brush your teeth and brush your teeth only. That's hard for some people to do. No. Great example. Great example. I think you're This is the key, right? People want to try something, but they don't know how to integrate it, right? And you're giving them a a tangible, real example, right? For me, when I'm home alone, sometimes I eat lunch. I I try to just eat lunch. Now, that almost sounds insane. Like, wait, what do you mean? Said actually sit at the table with a plate of food and do nothing but eat the food. And you know, it's like, I don't know about you, but the amount of times that happens is really, really rare, right? And I bet for most people listening, they're looking on their phone, they're reading an article, they're listening to a podcast. There's nothing inherently wrong, right? But just be in the moment of eating or brushing. I mean, I love brushing your teeth because it's like what between 30 and seconds and two minutes. And just do that and engage in the process in the moment. That's what it's all about. Just being in the present moment. How many times watching TV or you're hanging out, right? You open up a bag of chips or something. I don't eat those anymore. I changed all that. Right? You're only going to have one or two and next thing you know, you're like, "Oh my god, the bag's empty. What happened?" You weren't in the moment. Just mindlessly eating. And I tell people through meditation and through mindfulness, one of the sayings I have is that stress and anxiety are conditions of the mind and not your external environment. And if you stay in the present moment, you can't be stressed or you can't have anxiety. The only reason stress and anxiety come on is because you're worrying about the past or you're worrying about the future. The past is gone. the future hasn't happened yet. Great nugget. So, if you can live in the moment, yes, you've got to worry about paying your bills and there's you learn lessons from the past, but be able to toggle between those two as well, like we talked about with the on the field and the stands and the sidelines. If you can learn to toggle between those things, it will serve you well. Love it. Well said. Very simply said. Love the thinking about the past, worried about the future. Brilliantly described. Thank you in in very few words. I love that. Um, how does the time go fast here? We're going to give you a chance to let everybody know where they should come uh to connect with you, to uh to read your materials, whatever it is you want to let them know about because we know your point being here at this point, right, is to spread the word and help people become more mindful. So before we do that and give you the opportunity, um I ask every person on the podcast the same question. It can be related to what we're talking about or something entirely different. Um what is something that you've learned recently? Brian, the game is messy. Life is messy, but that's okay. You have to. And I I used to want to control everything. And just recently I've and I don't know this was I think I blogged about it a couple weeks ago because it just hit me. I'm like life's just messy. But that's okay. Let it be messy. Live in that mess. Have some fun with it. Do what you got to do. So I It's messy. It's messy and that's okay. Yeah. Love the second half of that. And that's okay. That's great. Great attitude. That's okay. Yep. Okay, Brian. So, for those listening, maybe they want to check out this uh this book, Life in Motion, or maybe they want to get some of your tips that come in for Just Breathe. I myself am a subscriber to the email newsletter, or they want to follow you on social, whatever it is. Uh this is your chance to let everybody know. It also be in the show notes, but let them know where you where you want them to connect. So, I have a a blog out there, as you mentioned. It's just called Just Breathe, the unscripted mind, and I spew all kinds of mindfulness and awareness stuff. Each each little nugget is maybe a three or four minute read. It's not very long. Um you can find me at um just breathe and it's not breath, it's breathe. Some people forget the e, right? So it's just hyphen breathe.go.io. Uh this book is out there. You're welcome to read it. I'd be happy to send anybody and you can put it in the show notes. to send somebody a digital copy. It's just on a PDF. Mhm. No cost. My blog is no cost. It'd be great if you sign up for it and you'll get my stuff dumped in your mailbox. But I don't upsell. I don't sell anything. I'm just out to share. Um you can find me um you can email me at um just breathe all one word.clmail.com. I I just I want people to question everything, especially the stuff that's going on in your head. If you can learn to question it, not I'm not talking about being the the super diviant person, but be that cognitive dissident, right? Be that a little bit of a rebel with your own mind and your own thoughts and your own beliefs. Then if if you start to do that, then my job's done and I got one person a little square. Yeah. Thank you for sharing your story about all this, Brian, for sharing the the the four pillars you talked about around uh lifestyle and also focusing in on mindfulness here today. All the places for people to connect with you, we'll have that in the notes. And um yeah, above all, great to see you and thanks so much for sparing your time today. All right. Thanks.[Music][Music] All right, everybody. There was Brian Reich. Uh hope you enjoyed the uh introduction as much as I enjoyed catching up with him. Uh really great to hear his story of transformation uh from 2019 to present now certified in uh teaching meditation and mindfulness and other things. And um yeah, winding down his uh regular part of his career and and again the theme this season seems to be a lot of folks looking to give back. Brian is not looking to make a penny off of what he talked about today. He just wants to spread the word. So, you can find him in the show notes, his website, uh, email address, blog, all of that, and the book if you're interested. But here are today's, uh, show notes. So, real quick, the metaphor discussed here is about life's game, which is about, uh, being immersed in the action versus stepping back to observe it. Uh, we use football as this example. On the field, on the sidelines, in the stands, or on the field, you're focused only on your position and yourself, primarily on the sidelines. You see some teammates, a little field, but it gives you the chance to take a breath and pause to refocus. In the stands, you see everything the other side of the field, vendors, mascots, and etc. You're in part of something bigger. And after the introduction, we go through a bunch of different topics. It was a really enjoyable kind of free flowing conversation. And here are the main bullets that I took away from that conversation with Brian. Through mindfulness, you learn to toggle through these three perspectives of life's game. again the field sidelines and stands. Taking a breath activates your parasympathetic nervous system. Gives you the chance to kind of reset. You can't escape the chaos of life, but mindfulness builds resilience. Mindfulness is the door to awareness. And we talked about awareness, how it's something we're born with, but we over time forget how to access it. And we can redevelop that skill by getting back to our authentic selves and being open. So, how do you do that? It's thankfully due to neuroplasticity which I can say easily and neuroplasticity you can rewire your brain through mindfulness. We talked about how to integrate this into what you're doing or start a new habit and you can start practicing mindfulness by just doing one thing at a time. The example he talked through was a friend he mentioned brushing your teeth. Just think about brushing your teeth and nothing else. That can be mindfulness. And if you can live in the moment, it serves you well. At the end, Brian talked about life being messy, and that's okay. And I think you can see a man who has transformed over the last six years or so um through his own actions. Not only the three pillars that we all generally talk about uh diet, exercise, and sleep, but this fourth one, which is mindful, mindfulness. Until next time everybody, take