April 17, 2025 • 36 mins
In episode 196, Coffey talks with Sam Kabert about achieving "soul-life balance" as an alternative approach to traditional work-life balance.
They discuss the concept of soul-life balance focusing on inner well-being rather than compartmentalizing work and personal life; the 90-second rule for processing emotions based on neuroscience research; the importance that people leaders model soul-life balance; the BREATH framework (Breathe, Relax, Energy to reveal, Accept, Transform, Habits) for emotional regulation; the "ninja breath" technique for managing stress in real-time; practical applications for incorporating these practices in workplace settings; and the importance of processing emotions rather than compartmentalizing them.
Sam will be a keynote speaker at the North Texas SHRM Annual Conference on April 298-29, 2025. You can learn more at https://ntxshrm.org/page-1824327
Good Morning, HR is brought to you by Imperative—Bulletproof Background Checks. For more information about our commitment to quality and excellent customer service, visit us at https://imperativeinfo.com.
If you are an HRCI or SHRM-certified professional, this episode of Good Morning, HR has been pre-approved for half a recertification credit. To obtain the recertification information for this episode, visit https://goodmorninghr.com.
About our Guest:
Sam Kabert is an expert in subconscious reprogramming, nervous system regulation, and breathwork integration. As a successful entrepreneur turned mental wellness coach, he’s helped high-performing leaders break free from burnout, stress, and emotional roadblocks—using the same techniques he’ll be teaching in this challenge.
Sam Kabert can be reached at
instagram.com/samkabert
https://www.linkedin.com/in/kabert/
https://www.facebook.com/soulseekrz
https://samkabert.com/
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHi-hxuxUe2ZlPJCMkZ7fFQ
Sam Kabert’s BREATH Club: samkabert.com/club
Sam Kabert’s books on Amazon https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B09T262PKP
Soul Seekr podcast https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/soul-seekr/id1474728691
About Mike Coffey:
Mike Coffey is an entrepreneur, licensed private investigator, business strategist, HR consultant, and registered yoga teacher.
In 1999, he founded Imperative, a background investigations and due diligence firm helping risk-averse clients make well-informed decisions about the people they involve in their business.
Imperative delivers in-depth employment background investigations, know-your-customer and anti-money laundering compliance, and due diligence investigations to more than 300 risk-averse corporate clients across the US, and, through its PFC Caregiver & Household Screening brand, many more private estates, family offices, and personal service agencies.
Imperative has been named a Best Places to Work, the Texas Association of Business’ small business of the year, and is accredited by the Professional Background Screening Association.
Mike shares his insight from 25+ years of HR-entrepreneurship on the Good Morning, HR pod
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Sam Kabert (00:00):
When we say work life balance as opposed to life
(00:04):
work balance, we aresubconsciously programming
ourselves to prioritize workover life. So work life balance,
it's really a term that's notserving us. And the first
reframe is clearly life workbalance or life work harmony or
life work integration, howeveryou want to say it.
Mike Coffey (00:27):
Good morning, HR. I'm Mike Coffey, president of
Imperative, bulletproofbackground checks with fast and
friendly service. And this isthe podcast where I talk to
business leaders about bringingpeople together to create value
for shareholders, customers, andthe community. I'm joined today
by Sam Cabert. Sam is an expertin subconscious reprogramming,
(00:49):
nervous system regulation, andbreath work integration.
As a successful entrepreneurturned mental wellness coach,
he's helped high performingleaders break free from burnout,
stress, and emotionalroadblocks. Sam is one of the
keynote speakers for the NorthTexas SHRM Annual Conference on
April. Welcome to Good MorningHR, Sam.
Sam Kabert (01:13):
Mike, thank you so much for having me. I'm excited
to be here with you.
Mike Coffey (01:17):
So your presentation at the North Texas
Charmanual Conference is soullife balance trying breathe to
overcome stress and anxiety andbreathe is an acronym. Can you
start by explaining the ideabehind soul life balance
especially to that listener whothinks that already sounds a
little bit too woo for for thebusiness conference?
Sam Kabert (01:40):
Yeah, absolutely for sure. So I was named to Silicon
Valley's 40 under 40 list atjust 31 years old and that's a
list of being top 40 mostinfluential people under 40
years old and I mean to be namedto that list at 31 was a huge
honor, it was a big goal ofmine. I also hit million dollars
in sales in my business and wasworking less than four hours a
(02:02):
day. So I say all of that justto illustrate a point that I had
what is the perceived notion ofwork life balance. Work life
balance.
Right? I had financial freedom.I could work when I want to do
when I want to work. And yet, Iwas deeply, deeply depressed and
numb after achieving thosegoals. So I talked about this in
(02:27):
a TED talk I did in 02/2024.
And basically, in deepintrospection, really
surrendering to those thoughtsand feelings that were were
coming up, I heard the messageof soul life balance rather than
work life balance. And I didn'tknow much, what to do with that
until I went deeper and startedto learn more. The easiest way
(02:49):
to think about it is looking atthe archetypal energies of the
yin and yang or yang. Becausewe're all familiar with that
symbol, yet we don't necessarilytotally understand what it means
or what it represents. So Ibreak it down like this.
The yang is the light side ofthe symbol, the white side, and
the yin is the dark side. Yangrepresents how we perceive the
(03:13):
world. How we move through theworld with, our five senses,
obligations, responsibilities.The yin is our inner world,
which is made up of our mentaland emotional state. So now that
we understand those energies, wecan apply them to work life
balance and see that both workand life require those yang
(03:35):
energies.
And we need both. So I believethe number one reason why
especially businessprofessionals are facing this
mental and emotional healthcrisis, the epidemic of it, is
because we're disconnected fromour inner world of our mental
and emotional state. So when Isay soul life balance, what I'm
(03:59):
referring to with soul is theyin energy of our inner world of
mental and emotional healthwhile life is the outer world
responsibilities, obligations,all those things including life
and work.
Mike Coffey (04:14):
So what's the difference between yin, which is
kind of a term we know fromEastern philosophy and what we
normally hear in in the Westwould just call wellness or
well-being?
Sam Kabert (04:29):
Well, like I was explaining earlier, we're
looking at as yin being theinner world of mental and
emotional health. That's what itis right there. And a lot of
times in corporate structures orwhen we talk about wellness,
we're just checking the boxes.We're just going through it. For
example, I did a presentationlast year teaching the six step
(04:49):
breath process, which as youmentioned is an acronym.
And it goes along with my numberone best selling book called
Overcome the Overwhelm. So inthis presentation, I'm talking
about overcoming overwhelm waswhich is clearly a feeling. And
I had, someone in the audienceask me after the presentation.
(05:11):
She said, you talked a lot aboutfeelings, but the thing is
feelings don't have anintelligence. What do you have
to say about that?
And that question alone goes toshow how disconnected we are
from our inner world and howmuch we think that we're not
feeling yet in our and we'realways talking about our
(05:32):
feelings. We'll say, oh, I feelthis way. I feel that way. But
they don't have an intelligence.Let's think about this.
What is emotional intelligencethen? So I think there's a big
misunderstanding of whatwellness actually is, especially
in the corporate world. And thebest way we can get in touch
with our mental and emotionalhealth is through learning how
(05:56):
to regulate our nervous system,which we can do through breath
work.
Mike Coffey (06:01):
That's an interesting take on on feelings
because I've got a mindfulnesspractice and the way I've always
addressed feelings, especiallyuncomfortable feelings or
feelings that don't really serveme is to approach them and just
acknowledge them, recognize thatthat's what they are and then
intentionally I guess set thoseaside and focus on what what
(06:25):
what else could be true or whatelse is is really going on. I
think like you said, the breathwork, focusing on my breathing,
controlling where my thoughtslead me, bringing them back to
center, those kind of things.So, say a little bit more. I
mean, I don't wanna for ourlisteners, I don't wanna get too
woo, but I'm really interestednow in in what you're saying
(06:46):
about feelings and the and thethe tie back to what we consider
emotional intelligence and howthe power our feelings have over
us.
Sam Kabert (06:55):
Yeah. I mean, none of this is quote unquote woo or
woo woo or esoteric or spiritualor anything. This is grounded
science. Doctor Jill BolteTaylor, are you familiar with
her work?
Mike Coffey (07:06):
I'm not.
Sam Kabert (07:07):
So she was on the main TED stage, not TEDx, the
main TED stage in 02/2008. Andher TED Talk blew up TED. That's
what really made TED theorganization so famous. Doctor
Jill Bolte Taylor went on to benamed to one of Time's most
influential people in 02/2008.She's a neuroanatomist, meaning
(07:29):
that she studies the brain.
She literally brought a brain onstage with the spinal cord, and
she explained the ninety secondrule. That our body has a ninety
second physiological responsewhen we experience an emotion.
And what that means is if toyour point, like allowing
yourself to recognize thesefeelings, getting curious and
(07:52):
sitting with them. If you dothat, what's called shadow work,
which is a term coined by thepsychologist, the Swiss
psychologist Carl Jung, whichmeans to make the unconscious to
conscious awareness. Because ourunconscious mind makes up 95% of
our awareness.
That's everything we don't haveaccess to. So most of our
(08:12):
awareness, we don't even knowwhat's going on. So if you do
this shadow work and you allowyourself to feel those feelings
coming up to the surface, thenyou can move through them in as
little as ninety seconds. Yet,the question I get most often
is, well, okay. If we canprocess our emotions in as
little as a minute and a half,two minutes, whatever, how come
I'm still feeling this wayafterwards?
(08:34):
So when I had doctor Jill BolteTaylor on my podcast called Soul
Seeker, which is a little bitmore of a woo title. Right? But
when I had her on the pod, Iasked her that very question.
And she said, well, it's becauseyou're not allowing yourself to
feel those emotions, so itstarts a new ninety second cycle
and you're get caught and you'regetting caught in that loop. So
(08:57):
if I were to use more like woolanguage, I would say, hey
emotions are energy and motion.
Which is something I say, butit's also like knowing who your
audience is. And if I tell youthe ninety second rule that's is
saying, oh wow, it's not justthis cute saying that the root
meaning of emotions is energy inmotion. That's actually backed
(09:17):
by science and here's aneuroanatomist that told us this
back in 02/2008 that was namedto times 100 most influential
people. Yet when I went throughmy breath work certificate
training, my yoga instructortraining, and all these
different trainings, NLP masterpractitioner training, all
Reiki, all of these things, andeven grounded personal
development as well. No one evertalks about the ninety second
(09:42):
rule, which is why I'm sopassionate about teaching the
ninety second rule because allof this is based in science and
when we use science then wedon't get met with like, oh,
that sounds a little woo, youknow what I mean?
Mike Coffey (09:55):
So so dive more into that ninety second rule
then. I somebody says somethingto annoy me in a meeting and my
first response is to grind themdown or or or to act in a
defensive way or whatever. Howdo I use this ninety second rule
to prevent myself from doingthat and from carrying that on
(10:19):
in throughout the rest of myday?
Sam Kabert (10:20):
Yeah, it's a great question Mike. And when I speak
to first responders, one thethings I talk about a lot is
compartmentalization. And youkind of alluded to this earlier.
And I'll I'm just going to bringthat up now so both of us
remember to touch oncompartmentalization later on
because that's an importantpiece of it. But the breath
process, the word breath brokendown into an acronym is what
(10:42):
I'll be teaching at theconference and it's the
framework as well for my book,Overcome the Overwhelm.
And this was born from the mostchallenging time in my life when
I I thought my life was going sosmooth. I was doing all this
work then it totally implodedand then I need something to not
only help me zoom out and lookat my life and do the quote
(11:03):
unquote shadow work, but alsoprocess those triggers in real
time. And I'd already knownabout this ninety second rule
but I was like, okay. Iunderstand to your point, like I
understand science teaches thisbut what do I do in those ninety
seconds? So the word breath isbroken down into six steps.
There's six letters in the word,and it's most easily summarized
(11:24):
with three simple themes. First,breathe, feel, then think
intentionally. So I'll walk youthrough it. The first step of
the breath process is like, oh,I'm feeling something rising to
the surface. Right?
My body's getting heated. I'mstarting to get agitated. I'm
starting to get it feels like Ijust had espresso shot, whatever
it is. Okay. Let me breathe toslow down.
(11:47):
Let me connect with my breath.That's the be in the breath
process. R. Relax. Let me relaxinto this so I allow myself to
feel because usually when thosetriggers happen, we go into
unconscious patterns and morethan anything, we're
disassociating.
So we wanna do the opposite ofwhat we've been conditioned to
do and actually relax into it,so we feel safe enough to feel
(12:10):
what's coming to the surface.Energy to reveal. That's the
third one. If emotions areenergy in motion, then this
energy that's coming up, what isit revealing to me? That's when
I get curious.
That's when I start to lean inand do the shadow work. Four,
accept to surrender. That's thea in the breath process. Because
(12:30):
often times what comes up in thethird step of asking questions
is like, oh no, I don't want tosee that. I don't want whatever
it is.
So we have to accept it. Andthis is the movement of toxic
positivity. Because toxicpositivity will say, hey, never
entertain a negative thought orfeeling. Whereas, we're doing
the opposite being like, no, no,no. We're doing this deep work
(12:53):
even though it feelsuncomfortable.
And at that point, we've earnedthe right to transform that
negativity into an empoweringbelief. That's the fifth step,
the T in breath. Transform intoan empowering belief. So it's
just an I am statement. Finally,H, habits to integrate.
As a result of what came up,what new habits, actions,
(13:16):
behaviors am I going to take? IfI'm in a meeting or if you're in
a meeting with someone andyou're feeling agitated, you're
not going to be able to runthrough those six steps and just
be like, hey, time out. Timeout. I need to work on me. Go
through this real quick.
Which is why we need to practicethis on our own, so it becomes
autopilot when we get triggered.It's like, oh, I feel that right
(13:38):
now. Instead of reacting, I'mgonna respond. One of the things
I teach people that I'm sopassionate about is what I call
the ninja breath. And the ninjabreath is based off the cyclic
sigh.
Again, science. Stanford's labdid a study to compare what
would be the most efficient wayto regulate your nervous system
(13:59):
into rest and digest to overcomestress and anxiety in real time
and have impacting effectsthroughout the rest of the day.
And what they found is thatcyclic that the cyclic sigh is
more effective than anythingelse. It's just a big inhale up
through the nose, sipping in abit more air at the top, then
(14:19):
exhaling through the mouth. So Icall the ninja breath the same
thing as that but just a subtleinhale through the nose,
inhaling all the way up, sippingin a bit more air at the top and
exhaling through the nose versusthe mouth.
And you could even practice thatright now Mike or the listeners
as well. And the more you startto practice that, if you're just
(14:40):
focusing on your inhale, youinhale all the way up through
the nose, sip in a bit more atthe top, and then through the
nose just subtly exhale. You cando I call it the ninja breath
because imagine you're inconversation with someone else
and you're thinking about whatyou're going to say next. You
you wouldn't want to be likeoverdramatic and exhale through
the mouth and this whole thinglike just subtly focusing on
(15:01):
your breath. And when you dothat, those thoughts start to
slow down.
You start to make theunconscious to conscious
awareness, and you're retrainingyour nervous system to be in an
ongoing state in rest and digestso that when those triggers come
up, you go, hey, I'm feelingtriggered right now. And instead
(15:21):
of reacting, you choose torespond.
Mike Coffey (15:25):
So, yeah. That's what in my yoga practice I would
call Ujjayi Pranayama. Right? Isit is is there are you
approaching that differentlythan the idea of,
Sam Kabert (15:35):
you know,
Mike Coffey (15:36):
the deep inhale, hold it, and then that that
controlled release? Is is isthat the same thing that we
would talk about when we'retalking about a Ujjayi Pranayama
or something like that in theyoga practice?
Sam Kabert (15:49):
Not necessarily because as you know, Ujjayi
breath is more that ocean wavesound at the back. You're not
doing anything like that. Ujjayidoesn't necessarily have a hold.
It's more rhythmic. This iscalled the physiological sigh.
What, doctor Andrew Huberman'slab found is that we naturally
do this physiological sigh whenwe feel a little bit of stress
(16:10):
or whatever it is. So I said,hey, like what happens if we did
this continuously? And that'swhy they call it the cyclic sigh
cycle. Continuously doing it. Soit is different than that.
Typically when I cue this in mybreath work sessions, I'll do an
inhale through the nose all theway up, sipping a bit more at
the top, and then I'll have thestudents hold for a few seconds.
(16:32):
And those few seconds of thebreath hold as you likely know
will get us into more of a hypo,transient hypofrontality type
feeling where the default thefrontal prefrontal cortex I
should say starts to turn offwhich is our thinking brain so
that we can go from our thinkingbrain to our feeling brain which
(16:52):
is the limbic brain.
Mike Coffey (16:54):
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(17:15):
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(17:38):
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(17:59):
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imperativeinfo.com. And now backto my conversation with Sam
Cabert. So let's talk aboutthat. Okay.
So in so on an individual basis,right, these these are practices
(18:22):
that we can adopt and, you know,manage our world, our lives
better, definitely be better,you know, coworkers, community
members, family members, all ofthose things. Make the business
case for me then for a businessleader that this is something
(18:44):
important that that as abusiness we should focus on,
when we're talking about whatwe're going to offer our
employees as far as as wellnessand well-being, offerings.
Sam Kabert (18:56):
Have you ever watched the show Severance,
Mike?
Mike Coffey (18:59):
I haven't. My family has and I watch so little
TV I I gotta block off a bunchof times so I can catch it
because everybody tells me it'samazing.
Sam Kabert (19:07):
Yeah. It's funny. I was big on Severance when it
first came out and then whateverit was, the writer's block or
you know, lockdowns, pandemic,whatever it was, I think they
took a few years hiatus and nowit's like blown up and I think
it's just the second season now.But when I first started giving
Soul Life Balance presentations,I would bring up Severance and
(19:27):
back then, I mean, the show wasstill on Apple and it was still
produced by Ben Stiller and allthe things yada yada yada, but
it doesn't have like thepopularity it has now. But back
then, what I would say is inthis show Severance, they
literally have a medicalprocedure where when they go to
work, they know nothing abouttheir personal life and when
(19:48):
they're in their personal lives,they know nothing about work.
So I would make the case then,can we now see that we don't
have a personal life and wedon't have a work life unless
you are a character in severancethat had this medical procedure.
Right? You know, it's funnybecause a lot of the business
demographic really loveseverance it seems like and it's
like, you guys, don't you seethis? Like there is no
(20:10):
difference between our personaland business life. The reason
why I bring that up becauseyou're you mentioned like, oh I
see the case in my personal lifewith my family but what's what's
the case for our business life?
You know and how we show up andwork? It's the same thing. You
know and especially when I'mworking with first responders
like they really have aseparation between personal and
(20:33):
work life. Right? And itarguably, it makes a little bit
more sense than the everydayprofessional.
But the point being is if we canprocess how we're feeling and
show up with confidence,clarity, enter into these flow
states, not drag that stuff fromour quote unquote personal life
into the work life. Just as muchas it's important to not drag
(20:54):
that into quote unquote thepersonal life. Like they they
they're intertwined. Anotherthing I've been doing for over
ten years is the acronym calledWIFL. And I learned this at a
conference in a business settingback in like 2013 or something.
But WIFL stands for what I feellike expressing. So at the time,
(21:17):
I mean I was probably like 25years old or something like that
and going to office supplyconference and you know back
then it was everything was waymore professional than it is
these days. And that's where Ilearned Wiffle. What I feel like
expressing. And the idea wasstarting a meeting with this
(21:38):
Wiffle where if I am in atypical business meeting and and
there's someone that seems alittle distracted, we have no
idea what is going on in thatperson's life.
So the WIFL is opening up thespace saying like, hey, if you
were a little stressed gettingthe kids to to school this
(21:58):
morning or you just got some badnews or you're feeling anxiety
about something later on theday. This is an opportunity to
have a safe space in a businesssetting to express yourself so
that everyone else isn't like,hey, what's going on with
Sherry? Like why is Sherry seemlike she's in the mood or
whoever it is. Right? It givesthem an opportunity and that
(22:20):
creates a culture ofpsychological safety, feeling
seen and all that.
So even the WIFL you know that'ssomething I've been using for
over ten years and that thatmakes a huge impact in the
corporate environment.
Mike Coffey (22:36):
I'm part of a peer group, you're probably familiar
with it, EO, entrepreneursorganization. And we start all
our our small group meeting, ourour peer group meetings, with,
one of the questions is, isthere anything that would stop
you from being fully present inin in the next four hours? These
are extended meetings. And it'sthink that's the same kind of
(22:57):
thing, right? You know, and andcertainly sometimes somebody
will say something and thatbecomes our priority as a group,
you know, trying to holdsomebody up rather than whatever
our other agenda was.
So you mentioned Wiffle. Whatother kind of practices could
could a leader then incorporateinto the the business
(23:18):
environment in order to promotethis soul life balance?
Sam Kabert (23:24):
Yeah. I mean my big thing is teaching the breath
process, the breath framework.You know soul life balance is a
way of viewing our lives whereit's not necessarily focused on
end destination. Because when wetalk about work life balance,
usually we're seeing it as oneday I will get to this end
destination. Soul life balanceis more about practice.
(23:45):
Additionally, we can look atcommon terms, and usually the
letter that's closer to the Awould be the first word in that
phrase. So for example, the L inlife is closer to an A versus a
W being closer to Z. If wereally cared about people's
mental health, we wouldn't saywork life balance for that
(24:06):
reason. Additionally, when wesay work life balance as opposed
to life work balance, We aresubconsciously programming
ourselves to prioritize workover life. So work life balance
is really just, it's it's kindof like, oh let's just, put this
out there or check the box likewe're doing the thing but it's
(24:27):
really a term that's not servingus.
And the first reframe is clearlylife work balance or life work
harmony or life workintegration, however you want to
say it. And if you want to gosoul life balance, that's cool,
but you know I'm not trying tobe like, oh, this is the way.
It's the people that are into itare into it. That's great. But
(24:48):
the breath framework is a waythat we can learn to regulate
our thoughts and our feelings,our nervous system really, so
that we can show up fully.
So what I have is somethingcalled the breath club. It's a
completely free online communitywhere every single week I have
people coming into these Zoomsessions where I'm leading them
(25:08):
through breath work. And most ofthe people showing up are
executives, they'reentrepreneurs, they're business
professionals, they're not yourtypical like woo type person
that's just wanting to you knowget blast off and have like a
DMT type experience throughtheir breath. No. The type of
breath work I lead is likelanding in your body so that you
(25:29):
can feel what's coming up to thesurface.
So that you can process it. Soyou don't have that lingering.
And when we take care ofourselves, we're able to co
regulate with other peoplearound us. So the biggest thing
I can encourage people to do isto find what works for you. And
the best thing we can do whetherit's a diet, exercise, new
(25:50):
habits and routines is startingoff in the morning.
But especially with breath work.If you can just take a couple of
minutes when you wake up in themorning, or just three deep
breaths, that's a start. Justchecking in with yourself. How
am I feeling in this moment? Howdo I want to set the tone for
today?
And continuously, I hear from myclients, people I work with, and
(26:14):
experience it for myself. When Istart my day first thing in
morning with breath work, theneverything else falls into
place. When that triggersituation comes up, I've already
started off the tone of beinglike, I'm landed in my body. I'm
feeling what's coming in thesurface, and I'm going to
process it. So that's the bestthing a leader can do so that
(26:34):
they can show up for themselvesthan everyone around them.
Mike Coffey (26:38):
So a leader should model that and probably it's not
very effective once they'veadopted the practice of, you
know, they kinda need to shareit I guess with with their with
their teams and what what thevalue they found in it. Is that
what you'd suggest or I mean,I'm a I'm a I'm very hesitant,
I'm always hesitant. I tellpeople, you know, once you adopt
(27:00):
in any new practice or whatever,keep it to yourself until it's
really become ingrained in howyou live and and, you know, it
it's you know, you've seen theefficacy of it and it's changed
your behavior and let peoplenotice the behavior change
before you start telling themwhat caused it. But I'd be
curious what your take is if Iif I'm a leader and I'm I'm
experiencing this and I I needto model, you know, I want I
(27:23):
want to introduce it to mypeople, how do you approach
that?
Sam Kabert (27:25):
Yeah. I mean, I literally said the exact same
thing in my own words on stageat Sherm Talent in Nashville. I
said, hey, you know, like cometo these breath work sessions,
come to the breath club,experience it for yourself and
when you see the differencesthen go and share it with your
team. Same thing.
Mike Coffey (27:43):
Yeah. When the rest of your your presentation,
you're you're talking about SoulLife Balance, you're talking
about the b r e a t h methodthat you've got. What's one
other takeaway that audiencescan look forward to hearing and
(28:04):
to learning, from from yourpresentation?
Sam Kabert (28:07):
Yeah, think we've covered a lot of ground so far.
The ninja breath is absolutely amassive, takeaway if you take
anything away from this at all,just focusing on your breath
right now and noticing how thatcalms everything down and taking
that with you, like that is oneof the things that's going to be
more impactful than anythingelse. Many people at this point
(28:28):
are familiar with thesubconscious mind making up 95%
of our awareness. As I mentionedearlier, what's not necessarily
as common for a lot of folks isthat in any given moment we are
processing over 2,000,000 bitsof information and only 126 of
those make it to our consciousawareness. It's basically
(28:50):
another way of framing the 95%subconscious versus 5%
conscious.
And the way that comes throughis through deletion, distortion,
and generalization. So there's alot of lessons around the
subconscious mind. My wholething is there's a lot of people
that talk about the subconsciousmind, which is the language of
the mind. And there's a lot ofpeople who talk about the
(29:13):
nervous system, which is thelanguage of the body. But I
bring the two together so thatyou can learn how regulate your
nervous system, the body, alongwith reframing and understanding
what's going on through yourmind and all of that's here, the
breath process.
Mike Coffey (29:28):
And you wanted to make sure we got back to
compartmentalization and and mythought when you were talking
about first responders, youknow, trying to comp
compartmentalize that or any ofus is the same it's the same
thing I've always thought aboutany kind of work slash life or
life slash work balance. Work ispart of life. I mean, you know,
(29:50):
if if you're going to work allday that's affecting your that's
part of your life. That's partof the the sixteen hours of
awake and, you know, and twentyfour hours in a day that you
get. And I think about thosecompartmentalizations like
buckets, they're gonna besplashing into each other all
all day long and so, you know,I'm I'm curious to to hear more
about what's your take on do wedecompartmentalize or or how do
(30:15):
you what's your approach?
How do you you know, what do youadvise there?
Sam Kabert (30:18):
Yeah. I'm really not a fan of compartmentalization so
thanks for bringing that back.What happens is like that
scenario you brought up earlierwhere if you're feeling
triggered, you're in a businessenvironment or whatever it is,
it could be with a spouse, aloved one, whatever it is, and
you don't have the ability tomove through it in real time,
what the breath process can dofor you is to go unpack that
(30:40):
before you drift to sleep atnight. Because most of us are
like, oh, you know, unconsciouslevel meaning real we don't even
realize we're doing it, but weare able to process it. So what
compartmentalization is, it'slike putting in a box up on a
shelf in the mine, wrapping itup with the bow, and then it
just collects dust.
And then it lingers and itlingers and it lingers. So using
(31:03):
the breath process before you goto sleep, you can kind of go
through your day and be like,okay, what what I experienced
today? Oh, there was that, therewas this. Okay, let me let me go
through all these steps so thatyou can move through it. Because
I I go deep in the woo.
I go deep in the spiritual stufffor sure and I do my best to
teach what I'm teaching now andexplain it in a very grounded
(31:26):
type of way. But when I am goingdeeper like say leading a breath
work journey, which is breathingnonstop for say an hour or so.
You can literally feel rebornafter that experience. I know I
did and many people I'vefacilitated and know as well.
And what happens there is notonly are you processing
(31:48):
unprocessed trauma, but all thethe these boxes of
compartmentalization that nevergot actually opened up and
processed.
So if we utilize the breathprocess, we don't have to carry
all that energy with us and wecan move through it in real
time. Which is why like, I'msuch a fan of the breath process
(32:10):
because it's literally a roadmapof how I move through these
things. It's nothing new. It'svery similar to what everyone
else is talking about. Whetherit be Doctor Joe Dispenza, NLP,
neuro linguistic programming,Tony Robbins, or any of this.
It's just giving it anaccessible road map. Because
when I went down all thesedifferent rabbit holes of all
(32:31):
these teachers and all thethings I learned, I never had a
tangible roadmap that made senseto me. So I built this as simple
as possible so that we canreally take it utilize it in our
everyday life.
Mike Coffey (32:47):
Well, that's great. And it's funny that I I was just
introduced to that concept ofrevisiting those things before
you go to sleep and I'm almostconvinced. I think it was a
Huberman Lab podcast about sleepand the disruptors of sleep and
how if we can review the thingsthat that were an irritation,
(33:09):
that were a problem, that were aworry and, you know, give them
their voice, you know, in anorderly way before you go to bed
at night before you sleep. Itaffects your it improves your
sleep through the night. And Iwas actually kinda skeptical to
hear that just because mytendency is to probably
(33:30):
compartmentalize too much and tosay, okay, I do not, you know, I
I know if I feed this thingright now before I go to bed,
it's gonna, you know, pester meall night.
And so, it's interesting thattwice in the last week probably
I've I've I've had this advicehanded to me, so maybe I do need
to pay some attention to it.
Sam Kabert (33:48):
Well, the funny thing there real quick is like
we can look at that from thereticular activating system,
which is a piece in the brain,the RAS, that brings that more
into your field and awarenessand that's not using woo
language. Or if I want to put mywoo hat on, I'm like, oh, well
there's the synchronicitieswhere you're being called to
look at something. And that'sthe lens of soul life balance
(34:10):
for me because I don't want togo too far of like the woo woo
of being like, oh, it's allsign. It's all like perfect. And
I don't want to go too far onthe life side where I become
disconnected from the magic ofthe world.
So that's really like theessence of soul life balance
just because you brought thatup. And one more thing real
quick. What you mentioned aboutyou don't want to drift off to
(34:33):
sleep like feeling those things,which is exactly why the fifth
step of the breath process is totransform it into an empowering
belief. Right? Because a lot oftimes these things get stuck
either in not processing thetoxic positivity or get stuck in
the shadow work where it's notbeing alchemized to use a woo
word or in grounded languagetransform it into something that
(34:56):
is feeling more empowered.
So like I said, like Huberman isvery much referenced in my book,
Overcome the Overwhelm, Things ITeach. I'm taking concepts out
there that a lot of the mostrespected teachers that are
grounded in science are teachingand putting them into a
framework where it's like now Iheard that thing, but I can
(35:18):
actually integrate it into mylife.
Mike Coffey (35:21):
That's great. And it's all the time we have. If
you want to hear more, join usat the North Texas SHRM Annual
Conference on April. You canregister for that at
ntxshrm.0rg. Thanks for joiningme today, Sam.
Sam Kabert (35:39):
Thanks, Mike.
Mike Coffey (35:40):
And thank you for listening. If you enjoyed this
episode, please write us areview on Apple Podcasts,
Spotify, YouTube, or whereveryou're listening. And share this
episode on your favorite socialplatform. It helps us reach more
listeners. And we'd love to hearyour thoughts at
goodmorninghr.com.
Thank you to our technicalproducer, Rob Upchurch, and to
(36:01):
Imperative's marketingcoordinator, Mary Ann Hernandez,
who keeps the trains running ontime. And I'm Mike Coffey. As
always, don't hesitate to reachout if I can be of service to
you personally orprofessionally. I'll see you
next week, and until then, bewell, do good, and keep your
chin up.
When we say work life balance as opposed to life
(00:04):
work balance, we aresubconsciously programming
ourselves to prioritize workover life. So work life balance,
it's really a term that's notserving us. And the first
reframe is clearly life workbalance or life work harmony or
life work integration, howeveryou want to say it.
Mike Coffey (00:27):
Good morning, HR. I'm Mike Coffey, president of
Imperative, bulletproofbackground checks with fast and
friendly service. And this isthe podcast where I talk to
business leaders about bringingpeople together to create value
for shareholders, customers, andthe community. I'm joined today
by Sam Cabert. Sam is an expertin subconscious reprogramming,
(00:49):
nervous system regulation, andbreath work integration.
As a successful entrepreneurturned mental wellness coach,
he's helped high performingleaders break free from burnout,
stress, and emotionalroadblocks. Sam is one of the
keynote speakers for the NorthTexas SHRM Annual Conference on
April. Welcome to Good MorningHR, Sam.
Sam Kabert (01:13):
Mike, thank you so much for having me. I'm excited
to be here with you.
Mike Coffey (01:17):
So your presentation at the North Texas
Charmanual Conference is soullife balance trying breathe to
overcome stress and anxiety andbreathe is an acronym. Can you
start by explaining the ideabehind soul life balance
especially to that listener whothinks that already sounds a
little bit too woo for for thebusiness conference?
Sam Kabert (01:40):
Yeah, absolutely for sure. So I was named to Silicon
Valley's 40 under 40 list atjust 31 years old and that's a
list of being top 40 mostinfluential people under 40
years old and I mean to be namedto that list at 31 was a huge
honor, it was a big goal ofmine. I also hit million dollars
in sales in my business and wasworking less than four hours a
(02:02):
day. So I say all of that justto illustrate a point that I had
what is the perceived notion ofwork life balance. Work life
balance.
Right? I had financial freedom.I could work when I want to do
when I want to work. And yet, Iwas deeply, deeply depressed and
numb after achieving thosegoals. So I talked about this in
(02:27):
a TED talk I did in 02/2024.
And basically, in deepintrospection, really
surrendering to those thoughtsand feelings that were were
coming up, I heard the messageof soul life balance rather than
work life balance. And I didn'tknow much, what to do with that
until I went deeper and startedto learn more. The easiest way
(02:49):
to think about it is looking atthe archetypal energies of the
yin and yang or yang. Becausewe're all familiar with that
symbol, yet we don't necessarilytotally understand what it means
or what it represents. So Ibreak it down like this.
The yang is the light side ofthe symbol, the white side, and
the yin is the dark side. Yangrepresents how we perceive the
(03:13):
world. How we move through theworld with, our five senses,
obligations, responsibilities.The yin is our inner world,
which is made up of our mentaland emotional state. So now that
we understand those energies, wecan apply them to work life
balance and see that both workand life require those yang
(03:35):
energies.
And we need both. So I believethe number one reason why
especially businessprofessionals are facing this
mental and emotional healthcrisis, the epidemic of it, is
because we're disconnected fromour inner world of our mental
and emotional state. So when Isay soul life balance, what I'm
(03:59):
referring to with soul is theyin energy of our inner world of
mental and emotional healthwhile life is the outer world
responsibilities, obligations,all those things including life
and work.
Mike Coffey (04:14):
So what's the difference between yin, which is
kind of a term we know fromEastern philosophy and what we
normally hear in in the Westwould just call wellness or
well-being?
Sam Kabert (04:29):
Well, like I was explaining earlier, we're
looking at as yin being theinner world of mental and
emotional health. That's what itis right there. And a lot of
times in corporate structures orwhen we talk about wellness,
we're just checking the boxes.We're just going through it. For
example, I did a presentationlast year teaching the six step
(04:49):
breath process, which as youmentioned is an acronym.
And it goes along with my numberone best selling book called
Overcome the Overwhelm. So inthis presentation, I'm talking
about overcoming overwhelm waswhich is clearly a feeling. And
I had, someone in the audienceask me after the presentation.
(05:11):
She said, you talked a lot aboutfeelings, but the thing is
feelings don't have anintelligence. What do you have
to say about that?
And that question alone goes toshow how disconnected we are
from our inner world and howmuch we think that we're not
feeling yet in our and we'realways talking about our
(05:32):
feelings. We'll say, oh, I feelthis way. I feel that way. But
they don't have an intelligence.Let's think about this.
What is emotional intelligencethen? So I think there's a big
misunderstanding of whatwellness actually is, especially
in the corporate world. And thebest way we can get in touch
with our mental and emotionalhealth is through learning how
(05:56):
to regulate our nervous system,which we can do through breath
work.
Mike Coffey (06:01):
That's an interesting take on on feelings
because I've got a mindfulnesspractice and the way I've always
addressed feelings, especiallyuncomfortable feelings or
feelings that don't really serveme is to approach them and just
acknowledge them, recognize thatthat's what they are and then
intentionally I guess set thoseaside and focus on what what
(06:25):
what else could be true or whatelse is is really going on. I
think like you said, the breathwork, focusing on my breathing,
controlling where my thoughtslead me, bringing them back to
center, those kind of things.So, say a little bit more. I
mean, I don't wanna for ourlisteners, I don't wanna get too
woo, but I'm really interestednow in in what you're saying
(06:46):
about feelings and the and thethe tie back to what we consider
emotional intelligence and howthe power our feelings have over
us.
Sam Kabert (06:55):
Yeah. I mean, none of this is quote unquote woo or
woo woo or esoteric or spiritualor anything. This is grounded
science. Doctor Jill BolteTaylor, are you familiar with
her work?
Mike Coffey (07:06):
I'm not.
Sam Kabert (07:07):
So she was on the main TED stage, not TEDx, the
main TED stage in 02/2008. Andher TED Talk blew up TED. That's
what really made TED theorganization so famous. Doctor
Jill Bolte Taylor went on to benamed to one of Time's most
influential people in 02/2008.She's a neuroanatomist, meaning
(07:29):
that she studies the brain.
She literally brought a brain onstage with the spinal cord, and
she explained the ninety secondrule. That our body has a ninety
second physiological responsewhen we experience an emotion.
And what that means is if toyour point, like allowing
yourself to recognize thesefeelings, getting curious and
(07:52):
sitting with them. If you dothat, what's called shadow work,
which is a term coined by thepsychologist, the Swiss
psychologist Carl Jung, whichmeans to make the unconscious to
conscious awareness. Because ourunconscious mind makes up 95% of
our awareness.
That's everything we don't haveaccess to. So most of our
(08:12):
awareness, we don't even knowwhat's going on. So if you do
this shadow work and you allowyourself to feel those feelings
coming up to the surface, thenyou can move through them in as
little as ninety seconds. Yet,the question I get most often
is, well, okay. If we canprocess our emotions in as
little as a minute and a half,two minutes, whatever, how come
I'm still feeling this wayafterwards?
(08:34):
So when I had doctor Jill BolteTaylor on my podcast called Soul
Seeker, which is a little bitmore of a woo title. Right? But
when I had her on the pod, Iasked her that very question.
And she said, well, it's becauseyou're not allowing yourself to
feel those emotions, so itstarts a new ninety second cycle
and you're get caught and you'regetting caught in that loop. So
(08:57):
if I were to use more like woolanguage, I would say, hey
emotions are energy and motion.
Which is something I say, butit's also like knowing who your
audience is. And if I tell youthe ninety second rule that's is
saying, oh wow, it's not justthis cute saying that the root
meaning of emotions is energy inmotion. That's actually backed
(09:17):
by science and here's aneuroanatomist that told us this
back in 02/2008 that was namedto times 100 most influential
people. Yet when I went throughmy breath work certificate
training, my yoga instructortraining, and all these
different trainings, NLP masterpractitioner training, all
Reiki, all of these things, andeven grounded personal
development as well. No one evertalks about the ninety second
(09:42):
rule, which is why I'm sopassionate about teaching the
ninety second rule because allof this is based in science and
when we use science then wedon't get met with like, oh,
that sounds a little woo, youknow what I mean?
Mike Coffey (09:55):
So so dive more into that ninety second rule
then. I somebody says somethingto annoy me in a meeting and my
first response is to grind themdown or or or to act in a
defensive way or whatever. Howdo I use this ninety second rule
to prevent myself from doingthat and from carrying that on
(10:19):
in throughout the rest of myday?
Sam Kabert (10:20):
Yeah, it's a great question Mike. And when I speak
to first responders, one thethings I talk about a lot is
compartmentalization. And youkind of alluded to this earlier.
And I'll I'm just going to bringthat up now so both of us
remember to touch oncompartmentalization later on
because that's an importantpiece of it. But the breath
process, the word breath brokendown into an acronym is what
(10:42):
I'll be teaching at theconference and it's the
framework as well for my book,Overcome the Overwhelm.
And this was born from the mostchallenging time in my life when
I I thought my life was going sosmooth. I was doing all this
work then it totally implodedand then I need something to not
only help me zoom out and lookat my life and do the quote
(11:03):
unquote shadow work, but alsoprocess those triggers in real
time. And I'd already knownabout this ninety second rule
but I was like, okay. Iunderstand to your point, like I
understand science teaches thisbut what do I do in those ninety
seconds? So the word breath isbroken down into six steps.
There's six letters in the word,and it's most easily summarized
(11:24):
with three simple themes. First,breathe, feel, then think
intentionally. So I'll walk youthrough it. The first step of
the breath process is like, oh,I'm feeling something rising to
the surface. Right?
My body's getting heated. I'mstarting to get agitated. I'm
starting to get it feels like Ijust had espresso shot, whatever
it is. Okay. Let me breathe toslow down.
(11:47):
Let me connect with my breath.That's the be in the breath
process. R. Relax. Let me relaxinto this so I allow myself to
feel because usually when thosetriggers happen, we go into
unconscious patterns and morethan anything, we're
disassociating.
So we wanna do the opposite ofwhat we've been conditioned to
do and actually relax into it,so we feel safe enough to feel
(12:10):
what's coming to the surface.Energy to reveal. That's the
third one. If emotions areenergy in motion, then this
energy that's coming up, what isit revealing to me? That's when
I get curious.
That's when I start to lean inand do the shadow work. Four,
accept to surrender. That's thea in the breath process. Because
(12:30):
often times what comes up in thethird step of asking questions
is like, oh no, I don't want tosee that. I don't want whatever
it is.
So we have to accept it. Andthis is the movement of toxic
positivity. Because toxicpositivity will say, hey, never
entertain a negative thought orfeeling. Whereas, we're doing
the opposite being like, no, no,no. We're doing this deep work
(12:53):
even though it feelsuncomfortable.
And at that point, we've earnedthe right to transform that
negativity into an empoweringbelief. That's the fifth step,
the T in breath. Transform intoan empowering belief. So it's
just an I am statement. Finally,H, habits to integrate.
As a result of what came up,what new habits, actions,
(13:16):
behaviors am I going to take? IfI'm in a meeting or if you're in
a meeting with someone andyou're feeling agitated, you're
not going to be able to runthrough those six steps and just
be like, hey, time out. Timeout. I need to work on me. Go
through this real quick.
Which is why we need to practicethis on our own, so it becomes
autopilot when we get triggered.It's like, oh, I feel that right
(13:38):
now. Instead of reacting, I'mgonna respond. One of the things
I teach people that I'm sopassionate about is what I call
the ninja breath. And the ninjabreath is based off the cyclic
sigh.
Again, science. Stanford's labdid a study to compare what
would be the most efficient wayto regulate your nervous system
(13:59):
into rest and digest to overcomestress and anxiety in real time
and have impacting effectsthroughout the rest of the day.
And what they found is thatcyclic that the cyclic sigh is
more effective than anythingelse. It's just a big inhale up
through the nose, sipping in abit more air at the top, then
(14:19):
exhaling through the mouth. So Icall the ninja breath the same
thing as that but just a subtleinhale through the nose,
inhaling all the way up, sippingin a bit more air at the top and
exhaling through the nose versusthe mouth.
And you could even practice thatright now Mike or the listeners
as well. And the more you startto practice that, if you're just
(14:40):
focusing on your inhale, youinhale all the way up through
the nose, sip in a bit more atthe top, and then through the
nose just subtly exhale. You cando I call it the ninja breath
because imagine you're inconversation with someone else
and you're thinking about whatyou're going to say next. You
you wouldn't want to be likeoverdramatic and exhale through
the mouth and this whole thinglike just subtly focusing on
(15:01):
your breath. And when you dothat, those thoughts start to
slow down.
You start to make theunconscious to conscious
awareness, and you're retrainingyour nervous system to be in an
ongoing state in rest and digestso that when those triggers come
up, you go, hey, I'm feelingtriggered right now. And instead
(15:21):
of reacting, you choose torespond.
Mike Coffey (15:25):
So, yeah. That's what in my yoga practice I would
call Ujjayi Pranayama. Right? Isit is is there are you
approaching that differentlythan the idea of,
Sam Kabert (15:35):
you know,
Mike Coffey (15:36):
the deep inhale, hold it, and then that that
controlled release? Is is isthat the same thing that we
would talk about when we'retalking about a Ujjayi Pranayama
or something like that in theyoga practice?
Sam Kabert (15:49):
Not necessarily because as you know, Ujjayi
breath is more that ocean wavesound at the back. You're not
doing anything like that. Ujjayidoesn't necessarily have a hold.
It's more rhythmic. This iscalled the physiological sigh.
What, doctor Andrew Huberman'slab found is that we naturally
do this physiological sigh whenwe feel a little bit of stress
(16:10):
or whatever it is. So I said,hey, like what happens if we did
this continuously? And that'swhy they call it the cyclic sigh
cycle. Continuously doing it. Soit is different than that.
Typically when I cue this in mybreath work sessions, I'll do an
inhale through the nose all theway up, sipping a bit more at
the top, and then I'll have thestudents hold for a few seconds.
(16:32):
And those few seconds of thebreath hold as you likely know
will get us into more of a hypo,transient hypofrontality type
feeling where the default thefrontal prefrontal cortex I
should say starts to turn offwhich is our thinking brain so
that we can go from our thinkingbrain to our feeling brain which
(16:52):
is the limbic brain.
Mike Coffey (16:54):
And let's take a quick break. Good morning. HR is
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(17:15):
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Our goal is that you never needto reach out to our support
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(17:38):
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Good Morning HR has beenpreapproved for one half hour of
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research credits. Then selectepisode one ninety six and enter
the keyword breath.
(17:59):
That's b r e a t h. And ifyou're looking for even more
recertification credit, checkout the webinars page at
imperativeinfo.com. And now backto my conversation with Sam
Cabert. So let's talk aboutthat. Okay.
So in so on an individual basis,right, these these are practices
(18:22):
that we can adopt and, you know,manage our world, our lives
better, definitely be better,you know, coworkers, community
members, family members, all ofthose things. Make the business
case for me then for a businessleader that this is something
(18:44):
important that that as abusiness we should focus on,
when we're talking about whatwe're going to offer our
employees as far as as wellnessand well-being, offerings.
Sam Kabert (18:56):
Have you ever watched the show Severance,
Mike?
Mike Coffey (18:59):
I haven't. My family has and I watch so little
TV I I gotta block off a bunchof times so I can catch it
because everybody tells me it'samazing.
Sam Kabert (19:07):
Yeah. It's funny. I was big on Severance when it
first came out and then whateverit was, the writer's block or
you know, lockdowns, pandemic,whatever it was, I think they
took a few years hiatus and nowit's like blown up and I think
it's just the second season now.But when I first started giving
Soul Life Balance presentations,I would bring up Severance and
(19:27):
back then, I mean, the show wasstill on Apple and it was still
produced by Ben Stiller and allthe things yada yada yada, but
it doesn't have like thepopularity it has now. But back
then, what I would say is inthis show Severance, they
literally have a medicalprocedure where when they go to
work, they know nothing abouttheir personal life and when
(19:48):
they're in their personal lives,they know nothing about work.
So I would make the case then,can we now see that we don't
have a personal life and wedon't have a work life unless
you are a character in severancethat had this medical procedure.
Right? You know, it's funnybecause a lot of the business
demographic really loveseverance it seems like and it's
like, you guys, don't you seethis? Like there is no
(20:10):
difference between our personaland business life. The reason
why I bring that up becauseyou're you mentioned like, oh I
see the case in my personal lifewith my family but what's what's
the case for our business life?
You know and how we show up andwork? It's the same thing. You
know and especially when I'mworking with first responders
like they really have aseparation between personal and
(20:33):
work life. Right? And itarguably, it makes a little bit
more sense than the everydayprofessional.
But the point being is if we canprocess how we're feeling and
show up with confidence,clarity, enter into these flow
states, not drag that stuff fromour quote unquote personal life
into the work life. Just as muchas it's important to not drag
(20:54):
that into quote unquote thepersonal life. Like they they
they're intertwined. Anotherthing I've been doing for over
ten years is the acronym calledWIFL. And I learned this at a
conference in a business settingback in like 2013 or something.
But WIFL stands for what I feellike expressing. So at the time,
(21:17):
I mean I was probably like 25years old or something like that
and going to office supplyconference and you know back
then it was everything was waymore professional than it is
these days. And that's where Ilearned Wiffle. What I feel like
expressing. And the idea wasstarting a meeting with this
(21:38):
Wiffle where if I am in atypical business meeting and and
there's someone that seems alittle distracted, we have no
idea what is going on in thatperson's life.
So the WIFL is opening up thespace saying like, hey, if you
were a little stressed gettingthe kids to to school this
(21:58):
morning or you just got some badnews or you're feeling anxiety
about something later on theday. This is an opportunity to
have a safe space in a businesssetting to express yourself so
that everyone else isn't like,hey, what's going on with
Sherry? Like why is Sherry seemlike she's in the mood or
whoever it is. Right? It givesthem an opportunity and that
(22:20):
creates a culture ofpsychological safety, feeling
seen and all that.
So even the WIFL you know that'ssomething I've been using for
over ten years and that thatmakes a huge impact in the
corporate environment.
Mike Coffey (22:36):
I'm part of a peer group, you're probably familiar
with it, EO, entrepreneursorganization. And we start all
our our small group meeting, ourour peer group meetings, with,
one of the questions is, isthere anything that would stop
you from being fully present inin in the next four hours? These
are extended meetings. And it'sthink that's the same kind of
(22:57):
thing, right? You know, and andcertainly sometimes somebody
will say something and thatbecomes our priority as a group,
you know, trying to holdsomebody up rather than whatever
our other agenda was.
So you mentioned Wiffle. Whatother kind of practices could
could a leader then incorporateinto the the business
(23:18):
environment in order to promotethis soul life balance?
Sam Kabert (23:24):
Yeah. I mean my big thing is teaching the breath
process, the breath framework.You know soul life balance is a
way of viewing our lives whereit's not necessarily focused on
end destination. Because when wetalk about work life balance,
usually we're seeing it as oneday I will get to this end
destination. Soul life balanceis more about practice.
(23:45):
Additionally, we can look atcommon terms, and usually the
letter that's closer to the Awould be the first word in that
phrase. So for example, the L inlife is closer to an A versus a
W being closer to Z. If wereally cared about people's
mental health, we wouldn't saywork life balance for that
(24:06):
reason. Additionally, when wesay work life balance as opposed
to life work balance, We aresubconsciously programming
ourselves to prioritize workover life. So work life balance
is really just, it's it's kindof like, oh let's just, put this
out there or check the box likewe're doing the thing but it's
(24:27):
really a term that's not servingus.
And the first reframe is clearlylife work balance or life work
harmony or life workintegration, however you want to
say it. And if you want to gosoul life balance, that's cool,
but you know I'm not trying tobe like, oh, this is the way.
It's the people that are into itare into it. That's great. But
(24:48):
the breath framework is a waythat we can learn to regulate
our thoughts and our feelings,our nervous system really, so
that we can show up fully.
So what I have is somethingcalled the breath club. It's a
completely free online communitywhere every single week I have
people coming into these Zoomsessions where I'm leading them
(25:08):
through breath work. And most ofthe people showing up are
executives, they'reentrepreneurs, they're business
professionals, they're not yourtypical like woo type person
that's just wanting to you knowget blast off and have like a
DMT type experience throughtheir breath. No. The type of
breath work I lead is likelanding in your body so that you
(25:29):
can feel what's coming up to thesurface.
So that you can process it. Soyou don't have that lingering.
And when we take care ofourselves, we're able to co
regulate with other peoplearound us. So the biggest thing
I can encourage people to do isto find what works for you. And
the best thing we can do whetherit's a diet, exercise, new
(25:50):
habits and routines is startingoff in the morning.
But especially with breath work.If you can just take a couple of
minutes when you wake up in themorning, or just three deep
breaths, that's a start. Justchecking in with yourself. How
am I feeling in this moment? Howdo I want to set the tone for
today?
And continuously, I hear from myclients, people I work with, and
(26:14):
experience it for myself. When Istart my day first thing in
morning with breath work, theneverything else falls into
place. When that triggersituation comes up, I've already
started off the tone of beinglike, I'm landed in my body. I'm
feeling what's coming in thesurface, and I'm going to
process it. So that's the bestthing a leader can do so that
(26:34):
they can show up for themselvesthan everyone around them.
Mike Coffey (26:38):
So a leader should model that and probably it's not
very effective once they'veadopted the practice of, you
know, they kinda need to shareit I guess with with their with
their teams and what what thevalue they found in it. Is that
what you'd suggest or I mean,I'm a I'm a I'm very hesitant,
I'm always hesitant. I tellpeople, you know, once you adopt
(27:00):
in any new practice or whatever,keep it to yourself until it's
really become ingrained in howyou live and and, you know, it
it's you know, you've seen theefficacy of it and it's changed
your behavior and let peoplenotice the behavior change
before you start telling themwhat caused it. But I'd be
curious what your take is if Iif I'm a leader and I'm I'm
experiencing this and I I needto model, you know, I want I
(27:23):
want to introduce it to mypeople, how do you approach
that?
Sam Kabert (27:25):
Yeah. I mean, I literally said the exact same
thing in my own words on stageat Sherm Talent in Nashville. I
said, hey, you know, like cometo these breath work sessions,
come to the breath club,experience it for yourself and
when you see the differencesthen go and share it with your
team. Same thing.
Mike Coffey (27:43):
Yeah. When the rest of your your presentation,
you're you're talking about SoulLife Balance, you're talking
about the b r e a t h methodthat you've got. What's one
other takeaway that audiencescan look forward to hearing and
(28:04):
to learning, from from yourpresentation?
Sam Kabert (28:07):
Yeah, think we've covered a lot of ground so far.
The ninja breath is absolutely amassive, takeaway if you take
anything away from this at all,just focusing on your breath
right now and noticing how thatcalms everything down and taking
that with you, like that is oneof the things that's going to be
more impactful than anythingelse. Many people at this point
(28:28):
are familiar with thesubconscious mind making up 95%
of our awareness. As I mentionedearlier, what's not necessarily
as common for a lot of folks isthat in any given moment we are
processing over 2,000,000 bitsof information and only 126 of
those make it to our consciousawareness. It's basically
(28:50):
another way of framing the 95%subconscious versus 5%
conscious.
And the way that comes throughis through deletion, distortion,
and generalization. So there's alot of lessons around the
subconscious mind. My wholething is there's a lot of people
that talk about the subconsciousmind, which is the language of
the mind. And there's a lot ofpeople who talk about the
(29:13):
nervous system, which is thelanguage of the body. But I
bring the two together so thatyou can learn how regulate your
nervous system, the body, alongwith reframing and understanding
what's going on through yourmind and all of that's here, the
breath process.
Mike Coffey (29:28):
And you wanted to make sure we got back to
compartmentalization and and mythought when you were talking
about first responders, youknow, trying to comp
compartmentalize that or any ofus is the same it's the same
thing I've always thought aboutany kind of work slash life or
life slash work balance. Work ispart of life. I mean, you know,
(29:50):
if if you're going to work allday that's affecting your that's
part of your life. That's partof the the sixteen hours of
awake and, you know, and twentyfour hours in a day that you
get. And I think about thosecompartmentalizations like
buckets, they're gonna besplashing into each other all
all day long and so, you know,I'm I'm curious to to hear more
about what's your take on do wedecompartmentalize or or how do
(30:15):
you what's your approach?
How do you you know, what do youadvise there?
Sam Kabert (30:18):
Yeah. I'm really not a fan of compartmentalization so
thanks for bringing that back.What happens is like that
scenario you brought up earlierwhere if you're feeling
triggered, you're in a businessenvironment or whatever it is,
it could be with a spouse, aloved one, whatever it is, and
you don't have the ability tomove through it in real time,
what the breath process can dofor you is to go unpack that
(30:40):
before you drift to sleep atnight. Because most of us are
like, oh, you know, unconsciouslevel meaning real we don't even
realize we're doing it, but weare able to process it. So what
compartmentalization is, it'slike putting in a box up on a
shelf in the mine, wrapping itup with the bow, and then it
just collects dust.
And then it lingers and itlingers and it lingers. So using
(31:03):
the breath process before you goto sleep, you can kind of go
through your day and be like,okay, what what I experienced
today? Oh, there was that, therewas this. Okay, let me let me go
through all these steps so thatyou can move through it. Because
I I go deep in the woo.
I go deep in the spiritual stufffor sure and I do my best to
teach what I'm teaching now andexplain it in a very grounded
(31:26):
type of way. But when I am goingdeeper like say leading a breath
work journey, which is breathingnonstop for say an hour or so.
You can literally feel rebornafter that experience. I know I
did and many people I'vefacilitated and know as well.
And what happens there is notonly are you processing
(31:48):
unprocessed trauma, but all thethe these boxes of
compartmentalization that nevergot actually opened up and
processed.
So if we utilize the breathprocess, we don't have to carry
all that energy with us and wecan move through it in real
time. Which is why like, I'msuch a fan of the breath process
(32:10):
because it's literally a roadmapof how I move through these
things. It's nothing new. It'svery similar to what everyone
else is talking about. Whetherit be Doctor Joe Dispenza, NLP,
neuro linguistic programming,Tony Robbins, or any of this.
It's just giving it anaccessible road map. Because
when I went down all thesedifferent rabbit holes of all
(32:31):
these teachers and all thethings I learned, I never had a
tangible roadmap that made senseto me. So I built this as simple
as possible so that we canreally take it utilize it in our
everyday life.
Mike Coffey (32:47):
Well, that's great. And it's funny that I I was just
introduced to that concept ofrevisiting those things before
you go to sleep and I'm almostconvinced. I think it was a
Huberman Lab podcast about sleepand the disruptors of sleep and
how if we can review the thingsthat that were an irritation,
(33:09):
that were a problem, that were aworry and, you know, give them
their voice, you know, in anorderly way before you go to bed
at night before you sleep. Itaffects your it improves your
sleep through the night. And Iwas actually kinda skeptical to
hear that just because mytendency is to probably
(33:30):
compartmentalize too much and tosay, okay, I do not, you know, I
I know if I feed this thingright now before I go to bed,
it's gonna, you know, pester meall night.
And so, it's interesting thattwice in the last week probably
I've I've I've had this advicehanded to me, so maybe I do need
to pay some attention to it.
Sam Kabert (33:48):
Well, the funny thing there real quick is like
we can look at that from thereticular activating system,
which is a piece in the brain,the RAS, that brings that more
into your field and awarenessand that's not using woo
language. Or if I want to put mywoo hat on, I'm like, oh, well
there's the synchronicitieswhere you're being called to
look at something. And that'sthe lens of soul life balance
(34:10):
for me because I don't want togo too far of like the woo woo
of being like, oh, it's allsign. It's all like perfect. And
I don't want to go too far onthe life side where I become
disconnected from the magic ofthe world.
So that's really like theessence of soul life balance
just because you brought thatup. And one more thing real
quick. What you mentioned aboutyou don't want to drift off to
(34:33):
sleep like feeling those things,which is exactly why the fifth
step of the breath process is totransform it into an empowering
belief. Right? Because a lot oftimes these things get stuck
either in not processing thetoxic positivity or get stuck in
the shadow work where it's notbeing alchemized to use a woo
word or in grounded languagetransform it into something that
(34:56):
is feeling more empowered.
So like I said, like Huberman isvery much referenced in my book,
Overcome the Overwhelm, Things ITeach. I'm taking concepts out
there that a lot of the mostrespected teachers that are
grounded in science are teachingand putting them into a
framework where it's like now Iheard that thing, but I can
(35:18):
actually integrate it into mylife.
Mike Coffey (35:21):
That's great. And it's all the time we have. If
you want to hear more, join usat the North Texas SHRM Annual
Conference on April. You canregister for that at
ntxshrm.0rg. Thanks for joiningme today, Sam.
Sam Kabert (35:39):
Thanks, Mike.
Mike Coffey (35:40):
And thank you for listening. If you enjoyed this
episode, please write us areview on Apple Podcasts,
Spotify, YouTube, or whereveryou're listening. And share this
episode on your favorite socialplatform. It helps us reach more
listeners. And we'd love to hearyour thoughts at
goodmorninghr.com.
Thank you to our technicalproducer, Rob Upchurch, and to
(36:01):
Imperative's marketingcoordinator, Mary Ann Hernandez,
who keeps the trains running ontime. And I'm Mike Coffey. As
always, don't hesitate to reachout if I can be of service to
you personally orprofessionally. I'll see you
next week, and until then, bewell, do good, and keep your
chin up.
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