97: Technology and Well-Being: Nurturing Resilience and Inclusivity, with Chris Lucas

Can technology truly unite us, or does it just add to the noise in our tech-heavy lives?

Listen in to the next episode in our technology and well-being series as I talk with Chris Lucas, co-founder and CEO of Ompractice. He joined us for an enlightening discussion about technology, mindfulness, and the all-important human connection. He draws from his unique journey in public health and yoga instruction to reveal how digital tools can enrich rather than undermine our relationships. 

We unravel the complexities of building digital health initiatives with integrity, guided by his commitment to transparency and inclusivity and emphasizing a balance between compassion and financial sustainability. Chris’s insights highlight the importance of engaging with people's diverse experiences and striving for genuine inclusivity without seeking praise for simply doing what’s right. Chris gives us hope--that meaningful connections and compassionate leadership can transform lives.

Chris Lucas is a co-founder and CEO of Ompractice. Prior to his long tenure as the first Digital Director for a wellbeing brand, he was a public health policy staffer for the Alzheimer's Association and the American Cancer Society. A certified yoga teacher since 2010, Chris taught yoga at White House events for six years during the Obama Administration. He's been retained as a digital consultant and in-house technologist to numerous professional athletes, sports teams, consumer and fitness brands. He lives in Northampton, Mass. with his wife, daughter, and dog.

You can learn more about Ompractice on its website, learn more about Chris on his website or reach him on LinkedIn.

Go to https://betterhelp.com/resilience or click Notes on Resilience during sign up for 10% off your first month of therapy with my sponsor BetterHelp.

Chapters

• 0:00 Technology, Mindfulness, and Well-Being
• 13:02 Responsible Building in Digital Health
• 19:35 Creating Meaningful Connections in Digital Age
• 26:55 Supporting Resilience Through Trauma-Sensitive Leadership

Transcript

Chris Lucas: 1:14

This stuff is table stakes now. You should be listening to people, and your customers have always been diverse. Your attitude might not then, so in a lot of ways I think it's you. Actually go talk to all kinds of people, people with different life experiences, body shapes and sizes. Part of the human spectrum there is that you think you can connect to or you want to be connected to and listen to them.

Manya Chylinski: 1:47

Hello and welcome to Notes on Resilience. Today we have another episode in our series on technology and well-being, and my guest is Chris Lucas, the co-founder and CEO of OwnPractice. He's also been a public health policy staffer and a certified yoga teacher. We had a wonderful conversation about mindful technology and integrating mindfulness in the digital world. What do we need to be thinking about? What is that digital technology replacing and why? I think you're really going to enjoy this conversation, chris. I am so excited to have you today. I'm really excited to talk to you. Before we dive in question, I start for everybody. If you could have dinner with any historical figure, who would it be and why?

Chris Lucas: 2:42

the answer to this one came out immediately in my head. He's a not very particularly well-known actor, but if you went back and saw like the vcr clue game uh, the man on the cover plays the role of the butler. He was also my grandfather and I. He passed away when I was really little and but he had this amazing career in film, commercials, all this stuff, and I would give anything to learn more about, like that aspect of his life, because I'm constantly told how much I am like, how, how similar we are and all of that and like. So I then tried to search for something. You know, you could say Da Vinci, you could say John Lennon, you go. I mean, there's all these wonderful, wonderful people, but I have to go with with what's true and I would give just about anything to have a dinner with them. Sorry, I got a little misty up here just thinking about that.

Manya Chylinski: 3:34

Absolutely. I think that's so special I I mean that he's got this public reputation. But he means so much to you and if I could make it happen, chris, I would wave my magic wand yeah, me too.

Chris Lucas: 3:50

It's cool. You used to be a, like a door-to-door salesman. Like usually, there's just so much. Yeah, it's really neat I have so many questions, but it's uh, I mean there's a lot I do get to know, but I would love to have them.

Manya Chylinski: 4:01

Yeah, well, and knowing the facts and the details isn't the same as getting to spend time with the person. Exactly, absolutely. All right. Well, thank you for sharing that. And we are talking today about technology and well-being and integrating mindfulness into our digital lives. So we live in a time where technology is really becoming, for a lot of us, intertwined with our well-being. How can we make sure that that technology complements human interaction and connection and doesn't replace it? Complements human interaction and connection and doesn't replace it?

Chris Lucas: 4:39

As if it just perfect timing. You can hear like my notifications dinging and all that, so you know like it's it. Even when you're trying to just do one thing, it's still like finds a way of elbowing in. Yeah, I don't know if that was a good timing or not. I think part of the answer comes from are you trying to bring people together in some kind of meaningful way, or are you trying to sort of separate them from the experience of their daily life and the people and things that are most important to them? I know, when we started our company, that was a big thing in terms of you know, obviously you know. So we offer, you know, a bunch of yoga practices, a lot of online virtual stuff, so you're seeing kind of supported in real time.

Chris Lucas: 5:20

But one of our biggest fears was wait, are we really just removing people from a communal experience? That is really really powerful part of it. And at the end of the day, we kind of landed on the side of like it doesn't have to replace anything. It can be kind of additive in that way. Replace anything, it can be kind of additive in that way.

Chris Lucas: 5:39

But I really do think that you have to come from a place of how technology complementing an experience versus sort of supplanting it or replacing it, and to me, like I think it's pretty clear when it's happening and when it's not. The world is not meant to be digitized, and I think there's been some big swings and misses where people thought, hey, we're going to really bring people together and it just maybe it did for a moment. But people are going to be people and I think I remember Facebook being fun one time and I reconnected with old high school friends and I was like, wow, this is really great. I mean now I won't touch it. So it really is sad in some ways. Like that, even good intentions can be undone.

Manya Chylinski: 6:20

Yeah.

Chris Lucas: 6:21

But I do believe that, I think are you in, is your intention to bring people together, and not only is that your intention, but is it actually happening?

Manya Chylinski: 6:28

Right, I like thinking about it that way because right now it seems like a lot of the different technologies just feel like distractions or interruptions to trying to live a life.

Chris Lucas: 6:44

Yeah, I mean I don't think our brains were meant for this level of constant input. There's just so much inbound. We physically weren't developed to receive, process, deal with and act on all of this incoming information and then also sorting it what's important, what's not? I mean everybody's vying for micro moments of your life now.

Manya Chylinski: 7:09

Right. And then you think about not only a sheer amount of information, but that perhaps we're watching something on our laptop or our TV and we're looking at our phone. But that we're perhaps we're watching something on our laptop or TV and we're looking at our phone and we're checking social media and the. I just don't know. I don't know how we are surviving in this moment, given the number of technological distractions.

Chris Lucas: 7:35

Yeah, we're not doing ourself a lot of favors, and I mean it used to be. Oh, you know, I think the Twitter is the second screen, you know, and so companies are investing. Now it's, you know, your social is like their first screen, and then the game is happening. But you're watching the updates on, you know, platform of your choice. Here, the convenience and immediacy is hard to deny, and so it really sets up some difficult questions.

Chris Lucas: 8:01

People need to be self-aware enough to ask, you know, regarding your own habits, boundaries, values, I mean. There's definitely times where I'm like I'm trying to catch up on what happened in the day and my daughter is asking me to read her and I'm like and I'm thinking, oh, you know. Well, all right, which one am I going to do? It's like there's an obvious choice here, chris, but at the same time, my brain is like, yeah, but I want to catch up on this dopamine thing that you know, or I want to find out about some score or you know event or whatever. Like I'm trying to process all this stuff that's coming. I'm still filtering it out, and I have something way more important, obvious and connected by literally talking to me. It's still like do I do that?

Manya Chylinski: 8:38

Yeah, I have been following a particular news story and a particular event and it is not at this moment rapidly evolving and yet I keep being pulled in to check has something changed? And for at least 24 hours nothing significant has changed. But I keep oh, what might be happening now? And I know it's happening in the moment and I don't want to be pulled in.

Chris Lucas: 9:11

Wow, yeah, that's really that's a good insight there, where it's not just the constant inbound that's coming that we haven't asked for, it's also sort of the uh, the way we've conditioned ourselves, even in the last you know 10 years, to ask for it almost or to go for you know status updates. Right, just like you're saying, it's just check, check, because you can hitting refresh, hitting refresh, hitting refresh, just waiting for that satisfaction of learning. Okay, yeah, there's an update and I now I get to see what it is, or being first, or whatever it is.

Manya Chylinski: 9:44

Yes, a friend and I were just having this conversation about the concept of gambling, which is nothing happens, nothing happens, nothing happens. Oh my gosh, something great happened and then nothing interesting good winning, losing happens, but we somehow, like we, keep going for that. Dopamine hit right. Is that that's what we're kind of searching for?

Chris Lucas: 10:07

Yeah, because we've kind of taken it out of the rest of it. I mean, that's sort of like again what I was saying about replacing. Right, we found these things to replace that, that feeling of, yeah, you made a new friend or you had a great run, or whatever. You can get these kind of similar feelings faster, easier, more regularly, and it just might turn out that you, you know, empty your bank account doing it. But because my experience in gambling is not hey, we had a big win, yeah no.

Chris Lucas: 10:37

I've been swayed away from that kind of thing once or twice. I'm good on there, but it's the idea that, yeah, you have this constantly available chance to experience something. I don't know if the word intense is right, but yeah, but there's a level of intensity and you can anticipation.

Manya Chylinski: 10:56

Yes, yes.

Chris Lucas: 10:58

And then that's rewarded, and you can just do that over and over, and over and over again.

Manya Chylinski: 11:01

Yeah, it's rewarded, just enough to keep you going Um, like I've. Only, I am not a gambler. I did the slots one time in Vegas. I won $75 and it was like done, walking out right now Cause I could see how, how one would want to. Yeah, digital component to that. What is the responsibility of an organization who creates a digital product to us as individuals?

Chris Lucas: 11:45

And that's a great question and I know I've said this to my team, our investors, our partners, our customers is that when we started this and it was very early it was well before the pandemic and I knew there was. You know, there's plenty of data showing people wanted more access to movement or stillness practices that have an evidence base, right Yoga, tai Chi, meditation not just sort of the latest fad, but you know, there is, there is clear evidence that this works for almost any human being. How do we make it more accessible? I said very early I want to be, I feel obligated to be a good steward of this thing because it is precious. We are early into it. This could be defined by people who might have their profit or their P&L sheet is more of their guideline than are we doing something important and meaningful for people who need it? So, because we were early, I feel like we got to define some of the rules. So it's not even just what is it as a digital platform, but even as one of the first ones in this sort of hey, we live in a virtual world. Now what do we owe to people Again? So what are we replacing, what are we trying to be complementary to, and how do we connect people? Those were the earliest, biggest questions that I think the answers evolve as people evolve and behaviors change.

Chris Lucas: 13:03

I do think one of the things that we are responsible for is recognizing what are we building, who are we building it for, why are we building it for them and who are we enrolling in the building process? One of the things that we do at OwnPractice constantly. Every month we have a meeting with all of the instructors and we show them. Hey, here's all of the updates within the business. Here's some things that are coming up. Here's new customer. There is a level of transparency. I think that's required. That is not normal yet and I think part of the obligation is to build not just for your customers, but build with them. And initially the instructor community, the teacher community, was more of who we thought our customer was. They might not have been the end user, but that's who we thought we were going to serve best. That turned out to be wrong, but so we built a lot of the of our platform and business around.

Chris Lucas: 13:59

How do we make sure that being an excellent instructor is livable so that we're not constantly losing the best, most qualified people because they can't make any money and they're going to have to go off and do something else. So part of what we were trying to do is say, oh, we want to preserve this magic that we are losing slowly, just because it's not you know, it's not a six figure experience for most people. So how do we do that in a way that is responsible and gets people the kind of outcomes that they deserve? So I think part of what we always need to be asking ourselves again is okay, we know why we started, we know what we did and we know why we made the choices we made.

Chris Lucas: 14:37

What are those next choices where we know we're responsible for both experience, for expectation, and how do we serve the people that are currently, you know, sort of within our sphere? And then, how do we also bring in more who we think this will work for, and that both goes for instructors, students, partners, because I think there's a tendency to be like oh well, we've got this little slice of humanity and we're just, that's all you know. We're going to just really squeeze every cent out of those books, and to me that seems misguided, and I think there is a way to build and add and develop, but only by bringing in new voices, new experiences, new the word I want sort of like fresh takes on what's possible. Does that make sense?

Manya Chylinski: 15:28

That does make sense, and it's so interesting to hear you talking about this because I'm thinking about you've built a company and you have to make money to support the business and for all the reasons that a company needs to make money. And yet I don't believe that everybody who runs some of these big organizations that we're talking about not to name any names has that same kind of approach. I think some of these digital products that we are all somehow connected to, or many of us, are fully profit motive and not as much or at all human experience or how can we be compassionate? It's just what do we do to make money. So I appreciate your approach, that is, recognizing you can have both yeah, yeah, I mean we.

Chris Lucas: 16:26

We made a very conscious choice that economic barriers exist for the kinds of people we know movement or mindfulness work for. So, instead of having what we do be you know the Lululemon demographic, and I think that's wrong. So what we did was we said what if 99% of the people who used it didn't have to pay a cent for it? What if we went to people who say they care about population health ie insurers, health systems, private practices, library, you know, like municipalities, insurers? What if those people were given the chance to take care of their communities and populations the way they say they want to? We found that that makes good money. You know we are profitable. But we, that makes good money, you know we are profitable, we, you know. But we're also not trying to make every available cent we possibly can, and our you know, our team's on board with that.

Chris Lucas: 17:18

Our early investors were on with that and our partners know that we're not just trying to say, well, what's your budget and how much of it can we get? It really is, yeah, it really is. Are we return on investment for you for what you're paying? Are you getting what you want population health wise? What are the objectives you care about. And how are we measuring? Hey, this is working, or how this needs some help, or this is not a fit. We should all stop what we're doing, right? But, yeah, I think you're right the leaders of the minds and they're all just figuring out how to get more of your attention and money at the same time.

Manya Chylinski: 18:19

Yes, you mentioned thinking about what does the user want and helping incorporate that into the design. Want and helping incorporate that into the design. How can organizations make sure that digital health initiative or a program like software and app is inclusive and is listening to a diverse set of users?

Chris Lucas: 18:46

Some of it's just you just have to actually do that and not say you do it, and you have to be able to to be visible in doing it in a way that is not looking for congratulations for doing what, frankly, should be obvious. We're not looking for flowers because let's see, see this inclusive thing we did, come praise us. You know I have a hard time when I see that kind of thing come by on LinkedIn or something like that and I just want to you know like this stuff has table stakes. Now you should be listening.

Chris Lucas: 19:19

You should be listening to people, and your customers have always been diverse.

Chris Lucas: 19:24

Your attitude might not then so in a lot of ways, I think it's Attitude might not then so in a lot of ways I think it's.

Chris Lucas: 19:35

You actually go talk to all kinds of people, people with different life experiences, body shapes and sizes, whatever part of the human spectrum there is that you think you can connect to or you want to be connected to and listen to them, and then, when they tell you something, you do it, connected to and listen to them, and then when they tell you something, you do it. So I mean, some of it is just, it's so obvious. You know, people get themselves into a mental pretzel trying to figure it out, and it's no, you just. It feels risky, but I'll tell you, when people can see their fingerprints on something that you put out into the world, you have an evangelist for life. Like, it's just, it's so simple, but it can be scary for someone who maybe runs a business that feels like, oh well, I'm giving, I'm ceding some kind of control, and that's not our viewpoint. See that hesitation, but it is worth pushing through.

Manya Chylinski: 20:23

Yes, I think there absolutely is that fear of losing control. I'm involved in a project a lot of really thoughtful people. We came up with some language a lot of thoughtful people with very diverse experiences. We came up with some language and we approached one of the groups that is going to be part of the project and they instantly found a phrase that we used. That was just awful in light of who they are as a group, that we have now expunged from the language and we've removed it. But it was a real lesson in how important it is to have stakeholders and people with diverse experience and the experience of the people you are trying to reach experience and the experience of the people you are trying to reach because we thought we did a pretty good job, but we did something pretty wrong yeah.

Chris Lucas: 21:17

And that is sort of an adult way of dealing with all of it, right, someone who's extremely generous, giving you hey, this is not okay. Right, because they could have been. Well, I just don't want to make waves, man, this really drives me crazy. Go along to get along. But also the humility to say, yeah, we, we didn't do this right. All right, let's fix it and still keep going forward rather than internalizing it. What does this mean about me, or us? Or now everything's right. So I think there. I think that to me, is how things should work.

Manya Chylinski: 21:54

Yes.

Chris Lucas: 21:56

People are being honest with you and then you, you have some humility, some self-awareness, and maybe there are cases where you know you get feedback and it's like, yeah, this actually doesn't fit, here's why we did it, but at least there's an honest accounting of okay, no, no, this, yeah, this doesn't work. We should really get rid of this, and it's pretty obvious why Cool.

Manya Chylinski: 22:15

This is also what I wish I had a magic wand for, just like. Let's just fix it. Everybody be inclusive. Think about other experiences beyond your own. So, chris, we're getting close to the end of our time. I'm just curious is there anything I didn't, as you know, like on just sort of the way?

Chris Lucas: 22:46

technology and being present. How that's all happening now is just going to be so different, even in five years from now, and so I think that the whiplash that's coming is going to be wild. I think we're getting even more opportunities to replace meaningful connection, and this is not me whining about it, I think it's just happening right. You can go to chat GPT or Claude or any mid-journey. The places to be creative are now being sort of outsourced, which is kind of a bummer, and so I would encourage anybody to ask themselves right before they use something or bring on a new thing, sign up for new things, what are they trying to get me to do or sell to me? You know, we have taught our seven year old that, on the rare instances where she sees like a commercial, all right, sweetie, what are they trying to sell you? And she understands that. So sometimes she's like, oh, I thought it was a car, but it was really something else. But she understands. No, they're trying to sell you something, and that's okay, they're allowed to. But the question is, you don't have to be sold, and so before the temptation comes like, well, everybody's joining this or everybody's joining that, I'm going to get in. This is where all the inputs are coming. You know we, we gave it, we said, all right, yeah, bring it on.

Chris Lucas: 24:05

What is trying to be replaced, and is it wonderfully additive to your life? Is it wonderfully subtractive to your life? Does it free you up truly? Or are you adding another layer to an onion that's already making you cry? Because there's definitely, there's definitely amazing interactive communities that that, um, that create, both in relationships and like music and art and literature, all sorts of ways of coming together that were never before possible. And it's all going to speed up and you know we're raising a generation not knowing what we're raising them into, like we were.

Chris Lucas: 24:42

I'm, I'm among one of those first generations that you know I didn't have a cell phone until I was in college, but I did have email and you know we were early adopters and that kind of stuff. But we don't have a clue what's coming for the next generation and we probably are like the worst people to try and guide the next generation through Cause we've just I mean other than we we've made all the mistakes. Let's please not keep repeating them. But I think there is a. I think there's a. There is a chance for something wonderful to happen, where people, where barriers are broken and continue to be broken, and we just have to ask ourselves similarly, like you're, you're really who, what are you all seeing, and is this what we really want to do? If the answer is yes, that's okay.

Manya Chylinski: 25:29

As you're thinking about where we are now and where we're going, which is unknowable to a degree, what is giving you hope?

Chris Lucas: 25:38

I think what gives me the most hope is I do see connection happening right. So I am very lucky in that. What we've made is a place where people talk before class, after class. What I love is that it looks like a wedding reception in every class, like these people would never come together in any circumstance other than this class. So you have all kinds having a positive shared experience. That is still possible. I see it 50 times a day. I have goosebumps right now. It is real, it is possible, it's happening. So that always gives me hope. So this is not something like, oh, maybe someday that'll be possible. So I do know it can and is happening. So that does give me hope. Okay, I'm not trying to be. I'm the source of my own hope, but I also feel like, hey, that's not a bad way to live.

Manya Chylinski: 26:31

It's not a bad way to live. And you're getting us back to that original question of is the technology adding to your life or is it taking something away? Is it taking away that personal connection? And you're talking about making sure we that what's giving you hope is that people are making those personal connections.

Chris Lucas: 26:50

And they're still looking for it and they're still willing to use technology to do it.

Manya Chylinski: 26:53

Yeah, chris, thank you so much. This has been such a fabulous conversation, what a pleasure.

Chris Lucas: 26:58

Thank you for having me.

Manya Chylinski: 27:00

Oh, thank you. All right, Thanks everyone for listening. Thank you for listening. I hope you got as much out of this conversation as I did. So if you'd like to learn more about me, Manya Chyilinski, I work with organizations to help understand how to create environments where people can thrive after difficult life experiences, and I do this through talks and consulting. I'm a survivor of mass violence and I use my experience to help leaders learn of resiliency, compassion and trauma-sensitive leadership to build strategies to enable teams to thrive and be engaged amidst difficulty and turmoil. If this is something you want to learn more about, visit my website, wwwmanyachilinskicom, or email me at manya at manyachilinski, or stop by my social media on LinkedIn and Twitter. Thanks so much.