Hello friends, and a very warm welcome to Transforming Stress with Dr. Ash. Are you ready to turn stress into your comfort? For over 30 years now, Dr. Ash has worked and gained education across three continents: India, the United Kingdom, and the United States in healthcare. He's witnessed firsthand how stress can impact our health and cause our happiness. But here's the exciting part. He's here to help you transform your stress into a powerful tool for growth and resilience. Each week, he'll share practical tools and life-changing insights from his books, including The Boiling Frog, to help you manage your stress, find balance, and live a life of purpose. Please join us every Friday at 5 p.m. and let's start turning stress into strength together. Now let's dive into today's episode.
SPEAKER_00Welcome to the Transforming Stress with Dr. Ash. Today we have got corporate and wellness coach Aparna Dalakoti. Welcome, Aparna. Thank you so much, Dr. Ash. Glad to be here. So Aparna, today we are meeting uh to uh discuss the recent uh sad death of Anna Sebastian, who was uh recently working at the EY, and uh it has created a lot of concern about the work-related stress in multinational companies. And this is not the first time this has happened. There is a huge prevalence of stress. Also, in the recent media, India is now one of the top nations with high prevalence of toxic levels of work-related stress. I've learned in my association with you that you worked in a multinational company and you successfully navigated through that environment and would be very grateful for your understanding of what's going on in the current work environment.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, uh, Dr. Ash, I'm I'm really grateful to you that you chose to do a podcast on this topic as it really is the need of the hour. And everyone seems to be talking about the problem. Uh, everyone seems to be finding what went wrong and who was at fault. But unfortunately, not many are talking about the solutions or what can be done. So it's a fantastic opportunity, I guess, to discuss uh what we can do. And as you pointed out, I was with Ewife for almost seven years before I pivoted and I turned to wellness. And ever since then, my life has been all about reducing stress, dealing with burnout, taking care of yourself, making yourself the priority, meet physical stress, emotional stress, mental stress, and really understanding and being aware of what wellness means to us and why it is so important.
SPEAKER_00So I wanted to know from you, you having worked in the corporate culture, what is it about the culture and the environment which is so toxic?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, Dr. Ash, you know, every person that completes their college, their master's, or when we get our degree, all we want is to land our dream job. And at the age, especially at that age, uh in our early 20s, we are very enthusiastic. We want to prove something to ourselves, to our family, to our relatives. And sometimes these jobs, or sometimes our work can demand a lot of a lot from us, and we kind of get lost in trying to achieve something, and we don't realize what we are leaving behind. At any given workplace, it's not just us, it's our peers, it's our subordinates, it's our managers, the top managers, our bosses. There is there are different verticals. So there's not just the problem of deadlines, there's also the kind of people you are dealing with, the kind of culture that the top management has set in an organization. It is also how well is a person able to manage their boundaries, how well they are able to balance their personal and professional life. While work-life balance is extremely talked about, and I don't think there is a single person who has a corporate job and is not aware or has not used this term ever in their life. Work-life balance is something that we all strive towards, whether we are working at an organization or we are an entrepreneur. So that is easier said than done, I feel, because maintaining a healthy work-life balance involves setting boundaries, making sure that you are aware of your priorities, knowing uh what your capabilities are, knowing when you are at borderline exhaustion.
SPEAKER_00Thank you, Aparna. Thank you uh for sharing uh those remarkable insights into the culture of different kinds of industries. And you mentioned that the levels of stress are enormously increasing, and so much so that the individuals are not able to focus on on their own self-care, and the success they are able to get is coming at the cost of their own self-sacrifice, which is definitely not a good place to be.
SPEAKER_01The corporate culture uh, of course, can be very demanding. It's deadline-to-deadline kind of a culture, and it's everywhere, it's prevalent in most of the industries, and it's it's a global issue. During my time in Ewai, I had to face scenarios where uh it was very easy for me to ignore my well-being if I was not aware and I could see this happening around me, and a lot of times also Vigmi, that we would be so busy that we would forget or we would think it's alright or convenient to skip names, or it's convenient to not take care of ourselves as much as we should. While these can be high pressure jobs, and sometimes you really you really have to put in your 100%, but I think uh always one has to be very mindful that success does not come at the cost of self-sacrifice. And I don't think there is any achievement worthy of uh of boasting where we've sacrificed our own mental and physical peace. And I think that is what's going wrong with most of the people who are facing burnout, that they want to be successful, but at the cost of their own happiness, at the cost of their own well-being. And that is where we go wrong. That is where we probably unconsciously make decisions which we do not realize will impact us in the long run and how how badly they are going to impact us in the long run. So yeah, I think um I think it's really high time that we need to increase the awareness of of how we can stop people from reaching a stage from where it's too late to come back.
SPEAKER_00Now, let me take a minute here to explain the kinds of stress. We all go through stress in life, and if you are if you are alive, you're going to you're going to deal with stress. Welcome to life. Welcome to life. So, uh, but the stress is of three kinds. One is a good stress, which is known as you stress, and then we have got a bad stress, which is distress. Then we have got toxic stress, and this is the distress and the toxic stress, which is the high levels of stress which is ongoing for days and days and months and months, which demands so much from the physiology and psychology of the person. At the end of the at the end, they are not able to deliver, and their bodies and their minds succumb to this kind of is that reasonable to say that?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. And it's it's interesting how you said um the negative stress that's called distress. And yeah, it's it's so easy to succumb to corporate stress these days because of so many factors. And you know, if I may add a point that um, you know, there's a saying that people don't leave organizations, they leave bosses. So it's not just the deadlines or the work or the culture that's stressing us out, it's so much happening around us. It's people management, it's time management. Uh, while I have been quite lucky to uh to have uh peers and bosses and subordinates that were extremely wonderful to work with, but I think all of us have been in that situation where people management becomes difficult, where exactly we don't have to succumb but uh find our own voice and put ourselves on the priority and not, you know, yeah, not just sacrifice ourselves.
SPEAKER_00Very, very true. And um, as you very correctly pointed, and recently one of my friends who is a senior executive in the United States, he was sharing with me that bad bosses are man-agers. They are man, they are what what he said that bad bosses are not managers, but they are man-agers. And I and I and I said to my friend, I said to my friend that I will go one step ahead. I'll step, I'll go one step ahead and I will say that they are man-eaters. Ultimately, that levels of toxic stress in any organization can result in serious illness. But but Aparna, one thing I would like to say share here with the listeners is that we do not want to take a blame and shame approach. I I believe in taking complete responsibility and extreme ownership of the situation. At the end of the day, we are adult. If we are in our if we are in a work environment, it is our responsibility to see how we are managing in that environment. And nobody has held us hostage that we have to stay in an environment or in a working relationship. We try our best with all the skills we have got, and if it is not working, maybe it's not the right environment to serve our own values.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I think it's it's you know, it's the lack of awareness. I think people know that they are burning out, but they don't know what to do about it. That's the sad part. And if you take a step back, uh the most unfortunate part is that we don't realize uh when we are burning out. We don't realize that we are stressed. We have normalized uh being stressed so much. We've normalized, you know, sweaty palms, chest breathing, running from one thing to another, living life in an extremely rushed space. We've normalized all of it so much that we don't realize that we are we are burning out. We are it's it's stressing us out and it might lead to chronic illnesses in the future. So absolutely, the onus is on us, and uh but for that, the awareness needs to be there.
SPEAKER_00Yes, so uh recently, Apurana, I've published a book, The Boiling Frog, the Boiling Frog Workbook, which talks about the how to increase the awareness of this situation, how to create the awareness of this situation, and then how to manage this. And this is what I've presented in the boiling frog framework. Have you heard of the analogy of the boiling frog?
SPEAKER_01No, I would love to know more. I think I have, but I would love to know your perspective on the analogy of boiling frog, and would also love to know the insights on how you think stress can be managed by especially the youngsters in the corporate uh environment.
SPEAKER_00Okay, so let me just first tell you about what is boiling frog and then your second question how people can manage. So the boiling frog analogy is a commonly used metaphor, and it goes like this if you throw a frog in hot water, it will immediately jump out. But if you throw a frog in cold water and slowly and slowly increase the temperature of the water, the frog keeps adapting to the increase in the temperature, which is so subtle that it is not even realizing it till the time that it is boiled to death. Similarly, many times chronic stress can be can be beyond our levels of awareness. Or even if it is slightly in our awareness, people might not understand of what effects it is causing on their body, on their psyche, and their mind. The the awareness is lacking, the self-awareness is lacking. So the effect of chronic stress, the insidious, hidden, tall of those micro stresses in our daily life, is very similar to the boiling frog analogy. The frog dies. What is what is but what is what is uh the boiling frog? It is like a slow death. Can I tell you that? Can I tell you something with a sense of humor? That there are two kinds of people in this world, the living and the dead. And the dead are two kinds: the living dead and the dead. And then the living dead are the ones which are actually walking, smiling, but inside they feel very, very life. And that is what the chronic stress does to do to us. Now, now answering your second question, uh, what is the solution? So the first thing is that there is no black and white solution. We have to have a strategy. There's a difference between solution and a strategy. When you say solution, you more you are trying to say that something is fixed and is a one-size-fits-all approach. So, Aparna, there is no one size fits all approach. Every person has to understand first themselves. So I'm I'm a consultant in general internal medicine. I have been in healthcare for 30 plus years now, and more than 25 years as a as a physician. So my brain works in two two primary directions. You know, what is the diagnosis and how do you manage the pain? How do you diagnose? How do you manage? So here a person first has to diagnose their own self. And the diagnosis starts with know yourself. What are your what are your strengths, what are your weaknesses, what are your blind spots, how what is your emotional landscape on a day-to-day basis? How the environment is affecting you, how you are affecting the environment. And the next thing is manage yourself, right? Manage your emotions, manage your energy level, see whether you are able to live your strengths in your working environment. See whether you are able to live your own core value. So, this is what I have taught. This is what I'm teaching in the boiling frog framework. Now, the second thing is once you have done this, that you have basically diagnosed yourself, that when I say diagnosis, I mean awareness, self-awareness, that you are aware now of your own strengths, your own values, your own emotions on a day-to-day basis, how you are affecting the environment and how the environment is affecting you. And the next thing is how do you manage? Are you able to manage yourself with self-discipline, with self-high levels of self-care? Are you able to take complete responsibility, complete ownership of your situation? Now we come to the second part, and that is diagnosing the environment. The diagnosing, when I say diagnosing the environment, how is the culture of the company? How are the people in the company? What are the core values of the company you're working with? Are those core values serving your own values? So you make a diagnosis of the environment, and then you manage the environment. You manage the environment and see what you can do. But again, Aparna, this is a very long topic. We will discuss this in bite-sized information and build up this conversation. And I would love to know your thoughts at this point of time.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I think self-management, uh, what you said, self-diagnosis, it's so important. Uh and for that, one really needs to take a step back, one really needs to take a break and understand that something needs to be done. Only then is self-management and uh self-diagnosis important when you feel the need to diagnose. And you know, it's uh while listening to you, uh, I realized something about my own life. When I was at Evive, I think on an average day, I used to have eight to nine calls. And these are just calls, okay? These are not in-person meetings, they are over, they were over and about, and doing the work and all of that was different. So I was probably interacting with uh almost 20 people every day, and that was my routine for more than five years. Uh and ever since I transitioned, uh, and ever since I moved to a minimum lifestyle, now I realize if I have to meet two people in one day, it starts stressing me out. So, um, you know, body, our body, our mind, it has a fantastic ability to change and to adapt with what we are trying to do. It is just that we are we don't take a step back and we don't manage ourselves, we don't diagnose ourselves, as you said. Uh, but once we do, but once we make even small proactive changes, small changes to the lifestyle, I think the results really do appear. And over time they add up to big changes. And I see that happening in my life, and and I'm sure once one is more aware about what to do in self-management, they they also would be able to take positive steps. So, so Dr. Ash, what do you mean when you say self-management? I would love to know what exactly should one do to self-diagnose or self-manage.
SPEAKER_00So, in the framework I have developed, Aparna, there are five pillars of self-management. So, the first pillar is self-awareness. Then we have got self-reflection. Self-reflection is a way to reach self-awareness. Then I talk about self-care and different aspects of self-care. So there are five rings in the five Olympic rings. So they have you have got physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, and social, all different aspects of self-self-care. And self-care is really poor in a lot of professional. And I I will say a few more lines about self-care uh shortly. The next thing is self-discipline. Do we have the discipline to do self-reflection? Do we have the discipline to do all the self-care activities? And the final piece, which I feel is very, very important, is is that choice that you that one makes that one makes that choice that this is my life. I take complete ownership of making that choice that what I am going to look after myself. Now, coming back to self-care, I I would just go into one point. I was listening to one of the spiritual teachers and who who said beautifully that there is no self-care, a poor self-care, because there is no self. Many people are identifying themselves with their egos, and in that pursuit of that success, they are just relentlessly going on and on and compromising all the aspects of self-care, whether it is physical, whether it is mental, whether it is emotional, whether it is spiritual or social, and it comes with the price tag. But I would definitely like to your efforts which you have made upon yourself to transition, they are worth praising that you made this transition from a very positive mindset without any kind of negative thoughts, negative emotions. You realize that it was a time to move into a new space which was more resonant with your own values, so that you can even serve more people from a higher space. And we know that now with the Gallup surveys, Gallup is an organization which does continent by continent surveys, saying around 40 to 45 percent people all around the world face burnout. So what you are doing, what you are doing is uh is just uh uh an amazing work, and from your high-profile, successful job, you transitioned to teach people all different aspects of self-management because ultimately it all connects to self-awareness and self-reflection, as that is that is where you start building those muscles. But I would love to continue this conversation with you uh over the next sessions we have, because all these areas are really much more deep, and today we can just give an introduction.
SPEAKER_01So if I have to really summarize, Dr. Ash, the causes of burnout are myriad. There are many, many, it's it's not unidimensional, it's not even two-dimensional. There's people, there is work, there's the culture, and there is the values that we have defined for our own self. Everything, every little thing, it comes together. And when all of these things are not perfectly balanced, when there is imbalance in all of these things, then is when a person really starts edging towards burnout, is what I feel.
SPEAKER_00Thank you, Aparna. Thank you for those uh very profound insights. I think one of the most uh powerful insights you have shared is uh there is a complex array of factors in uh in play here. You cannot uh pinpoint one particular thing, exactly. Multi-dimensional as well. You know, I we spoke about the boiling frog framework, which I have created, which exactly does this. The boiling frog framework is able to diagnose, help you first diagnose these factors, both at a personal level, at an environment level. And environment, of course, includes people, the culture, as you mentioned, many verticals, different kinds of people. And what is the kind of culture at that particular work environment? Is it a strength-based culture? Is it is it a culture which is more toxic? Is there backbiting? Is there bullying, bullying and undermining? It will all always, as we say, that the culture starts at the top. Absolutely. So there are there are absolutely many, many factors there, and one cannot pinpoint. And also, last time I mentioned with you that uh there is not a one-size fits-all approach. You know, if you go to a forest, a panel, if you go to a forest, there is there are a hundred trees, not two trees are similar. Similarly, human beings, we are all different. We all have got different strengths, different values, our own uniqueness. So, whilst one person might be able to thrive in a particular environment, uh, the other person might find it more challenging. So, ultimately, one has to start those assessments from their own selves, and then then uh then the environment.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, absolutely. I think it's very important to uh keep doing these checks, to keep analyzing if everything is going well, if everything is going fine, if we think that at a subtle level, or you know, uh if we have any kind of problem with one of the peers, or if we are facing regular issues with someone at workplace, or if our cultures don't align, if our personal values don't align with the organization that we are working with, I think it's very important for personal values to align, as you said, that uh you know we come from different backgrounds, so the cultural match has to be there, and if there is a cultural mischief, if there's a mismatch in the values, it's very, very different. And so we've discussed a lot of these stresses, we've discussed a lot of these causes. But Dr. Raj, in your opinion, what is the management? How does one manage all this? We've discussed that it's multidimensional, so I assume the management also will not be a one-dimensional management.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's one has to one has to have the strategy to be first define what are the challenges and then have a strategy to manage those challenges. I will come back to because this is a very detailed uh discussion. Uh first of all, individually finding out what what one is finding challenging in the environment. Is it their own issue with the strengths? Is it a capability issue? Is it a competence issue? Or many times people are very good, but they are not able to particularly thrive in the environment because of other organizational issues. So that is that the first key will be making that realistic assessment that what is causing that challenge. You know, sometimes uh sometimes one might be particular particularly working in in an organization and they might be doing very well, and one particular manager comes, one particular boss comes, and they find it difficult to deal with them, or there is an interpersonal conflict and the entire landscape changes. So I have created in the environmental management four to five different things to look at, four or five things to look at to be able to assess how things are going on at those areas, which I will be happy to share with you in our next podcast, which talks about the environmental environmental management. That'd be wonderful. I will definitely circle back to that. But one question I had, one more question I had for you, Apana, was you mentioned about the corporate culture. So, what are the kind of industries we are looking at? Me being a doctor now for three decades, I can tell you that the healthcare environment, there are several levels and layers of challenges, which of course I've incorporated in the book. But I want to know from you when you say corporate culture, what are the different kinds of industries or work environments where you would where you you could have similar challenges?
SPEAKER_01I think Dr. Rash, that's a that that's a very intriguing question because I never looked at burnout from an industry perspective. But now when I do, I think the most demanding job are the ones where people are more prone to burnout. And it is very difficult to say that X industry uh would be, you know, would rank number one in terms of making people stressed or exhausting them out. I think that would be uh quite unreasonable. But I do feel that industries, the the investment banking industries, the big fours that we have, the big fives that we have, management consulting firms, IT sector, absolutely, the IT sector, all of these, you know, I think they can be uh the top sectors, but again, I would say uh because I have been with Ernston Young for seven years, I was I've been with the big four for seven years, I've seen the environment there. A lot depends on the top management of the team that one is part of. And I have been lucky to have had I've had some really amazing people that I've worked with. Uh so it really does depend on where you are, what you are. I do believe that even the easiest of all industries might have the wrong set of people, and that could be a potential toxic environment to work in. Uh, I really feel that a person, an individual, should do a self-assessment and see what their capabilities are, what their strengths and weaknesses are to align themselves to an industry. I think the match has to be there.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, very, very true. And many times uh having the right academic, academic or professional qualifications does not equate to success in in success in in life or a particular work environment upon our because you know somebody might be exceptionally, exceptionally uh well qualified, but if they they do not have very great interpersonal skills or social skills, and the job requires more dealing with people, they are not going to be going very far. That's why I said to you that understanding the and applying this framework is very important. That how one is dealing with a in a particular work environment. Thank you, Aparna, for joining us at the Transforming Stress Podcast. And uh, it's been really lovely speaking with you. If if our listeners want to uh find you, what would be the best way?
SPEAKER_01Thank you, Dr. Nash. It's always enriching having a word with you, having a conversation with you. Thank you so much for having me here. I'm there on all the social media uh platforms that we have. Uh, I can be found by my name, Aparnadala Koti, or you can look up my venture that is Yogtara Y-O-G-T-Dou-A-R-A. Thank you, Dr. Ash. Thank you so much. It's always lovely to talk to you.
SPEAKER_00I've got a link to your website here, and uh again, it was really enriching speaking with you, and we will continue our conversation in the next podcast.
SPEAKER_02Thank you for tuning in to Transforming Stress with Dr. Ash. If you enjoyed today's episode, we'd greatly appreciate it if you could leave a five-star review, a like, or subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your podcast. Your support helps us reach more people looking to transform their stress into new comfort. We'd love to hear your thoughts, so don't forget to comment and share. For more tips and updates, please be sure to check out our social media links in the description box below. We can't wait to have you with us next time as we continue this journey towards turning stress into resilience. Remember, it's not the stress itself, but how we rise above it that defines our strength. So stay resilient and keep thriving, and we will see you next time.