April 24, 2025 • 41 mins
Can mindfulness enhance B2B marketing? Stevie Jelden joins The SCORRCAST to explore how flow, meditation, and presence can elevate strategy, creativity, and decision-making. Learn how mindfulness techniques improve focus, foster innovation, and create deeper connections with audiences. Discover practical insights for integrating mindfulness into your marketing approach to drive success.
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Episode Transcript
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Music.
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Hello everyone, and welcome toanother episode of The SCORR
cast. We are well into the 50snow, with number of recordings
that we have done since June of2024 which is just incredible to
think about, that we'vebasically been putting out an
episode of The SCORR cast perweek for the last seven or eight
months now, coming up on onalmost a year. And our goal in
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2025 is to actually have 52episodes, one per week for the
entire year. And I am soecstatic about that. I'm so
appreciative of anybody that'slistening, also appreciative of
all of our guests, and I am soappreciative and excited for our
guest today. Stevie Jelden isone of my favorite individuals
who I get to work with at SCORR,one of the best minds that we
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have at the organization, andreally excited about what we are
going to discuss today. I thinkanybody listening to this,
whether you are in commercialsor sales, or you're in a lab, or
you're running a clinical trial,or you're thinking about
marketing specifically, you'regoing to get a lot out of this,
because we are going to talkabout mindfulness. We are going
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to talk about the intersectionof mindfulness and marketing,
specifically within the B to Bspace, but I know that Stevie is
going to give us a ton of reallyquality tips and tricks and
nuances on how to find thatmindfulness and find our flow
states and then being able to beproductive as a human being in
2025 and if you have listened tome rant at all, either on this
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podcast or on LinkedIn. You knowthat I talk all the time about
human to human connection, andthat is ultimately what
marketing is, and I reallybelieve that's the case for our
industry. Specifically with thatbeing said, as you can tell, I'm
excited about this. I'm ready todig in, but before we do that,
Stevie, I would love for thosewho don't know you that are
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listening to this episode, canyou give us a little
introduction to yourself? Youknow, how long have you been at
SCORR this mindfulness? Wheredid that come from? And then
we'll, we'll jump in from there.
Yeah, totally.
Thank you for the hype up intro.
That's always lovely to follow.
But Stevie Jelden, I am anaccount manager here at SCORR. I
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have been here for coming up onthree years, which is crazy.
Feels like three years and 75years all at once. Prior to
being at SCORR, I had wasworking in marketing, but in the
acute hospital, like acute care,hospital setting and clinic
setting. And then prior to that,I was, you know, in college and
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school and taking yoga classesand deciding that I loved yoga
and that I loved meditation andI loved mindfulness. So I
decided to become a yoga teacherwhile I was in college, just as
a coping just as kind of addingtools to my toolbox to have some
coping mechanisms for dealingwith stress, for school and
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managing that when I got into mycareer and those types of
things. So that's really where Icame about. It. Got my yoga
license in a long time ago,probably over 10 years ago. And
with that came the meditation.
With that came the mindfulness.
In my first job, I got a littlebit more in depth with the
mindfulness, and was able to Iwas working in Omaha, and I was
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able to go and teach mindfulnessto a lot of organizations,
including, like COVID So likehuge fortune, 500 companies,
where there was hundreds ofpeople listening, and then also
little, tiny insurance companiesin Omaha as well. So I was able
to do that for about four years,and I loved it, because I got to
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just teach people thatmindfulness isn't just
meditating, and what we, Ithink, connect those two. It's a
lot more than that, and it canbe really flexible and really
adaptable in the work that we doand the way we show up for work,
and the way we show up as likehuman beings, with our families
and kids and those types ofthings as
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as human beings. I love it. Ilove the background. It's
interesting. When we startedthis podcast, Stevie in June, I
did not think how many episodeswe would have about mental
health within marketing andwithin the life sciences
specifically. And we've had thegetting unstuck series with
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Brooke Paige Thompson over atVelocity advisory group, also a
yoga instructor, also very heavyon mindfulness, and an author in
that space. And then evenepisodes with Amanda zanier and
Jess Thompson and LaurenStockwell that that really
focused on, how do we deal withbeing a human being in this
space on a day to day basis, thebreakdown of personal and
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professional and you mentionedthat you were going through some
of this just to deal with thestress of college. Yeah, and
then all of a sudden, it's theCOVID 19 pandemic. It is remote
work. It's we're back in there'shybrid, there's all of this
stuff. And so all of the thingsthat you are talking about,
we're going to have a little bitof this lens on, on the
marketing side. But certainly,mindfulness is just a human
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skill that that everybody shouldbe investing in. And I think one
of the things that I'm excitedto dig in on today is, for lack
of a better way to say this,mindfulness can get a bad rap by
certain individuals certaingenerations. And I think that,
you know, when we talk aboutmental health on the getting
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unstuck series, we we a lot oftimes bring it back down to like
at the very basis level of like,what is mental health? What is
feeling safe and secure? Whatdoes that mean? Because
sometimes these buzzwords, forlack of a better term, can can
be looked looked upon in theend, in a bad way, in a wrong
way. And so at a high level,before we even get into the
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marketing. Can you just kind ofbreak down when you think about
what mindfulness is, where doyou go, and how would you
explain it to someone who iscurious and eager to learn about
this process? Yeah,I love that too. You said
curious, because I thinkcuriosity is one of this, like
the beginning places formindfulness, and that's a great
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place to be, to show up, if youare interested about it. But I
think at the very bottom, base,easy level to understand
mindfulness is being present,which can you know, I think we
can all think of differently,but I think when we think of
dropping into the presentmoment, or needing to drop into
the present moment, we know thatour bodies are in the present
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moment. We know that all of oursenses are in the present
moment, and we can quickly gothrough those to recenter
ourselves. So it's really justabout being in the present
moment. But more eloquently, Ialways like to quote Jon Kabat
Zinn, and he is, and I think forfor me being a public health
major, and for us in ourindustry that we're in being
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very data driven and scientific,I wanted to bring forward Jon
Kabat Zinn, just because he is aprofessor. He's teaches
medicine, so he is a scientistas well, and he is really the
like modern day mindfulness, Ithink, for for our the Western
culture, at least. So he worksat the University of
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Massachusetts, and he reallystarted this Mindfulness Based
Stress Reduction course, whichis still a present day course
that you can find all around theUnited States. He also opened a
bunch of mindfulness medicineclinics as well. So again, he's
bridging the data and thescience along with the
mindfulness. Because, like yousaid, I think sometimes
generations, if you're not sureabout what it is, you're like,
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Oh, it's this fluffy meditationthing. It's not anything that's
science backed it doesn't haveactual, you know, benefits and
those types of things. But weknow that there is data and
science behind it, which isgreat. So John likes to describe
it very simply, and this is myfavorite definition of
mindfulness, but he says it's anawareness that arises through
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paying attention on purpose inthe present moment, non
judgmentally, as if your lifedepended on it. And that's my
favorite definition ofmindfulness. I say it to myself
frequently, especially the lastpart, as if your life depended
on it, because that's verydramatic. And Jon Kabat Zinn
points that out frequently whenhe's talking about it, but it is
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true, right? Like we toexperience mindfulness in our
lives as human beings. There isa you know, our life does depend
on it, because it makes usbetter, it makes us less
stressed, it makes us happier,makes us better, parents, it
makes us better, spouses,better, workers, all of those
things. SoI, I love it. I am excited to
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talk a little bit more about thegranular aspects in a little bit
in terms of, like, what doesmindfulness look like? Because I
think that's where, you know,you can get people thinking,
it's, it's meditation, it'syoga. For some it might just be
putting our feet on the groundand, like, just having some
awareness and, and how you getto that, for each individual
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person is, is going to be, isgoing to be a little bit
different, right? Yeah, um, I'm,I'm, I love that you were
excited about the wordcuriosity, because that's like,
for me, my favorite when I'mhiring someone, if I'm looking
for, like a top performer likethis, curiosity to do things a
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different way, to do things abetter way, is something that
really I'm passionate about andI like seeing in others. And I
think when it comes to thistopic of mindfulness, you know,
I can hear a lot of the pushbackthat can be said around this
topic. And I'm like, Are youcurious to know if there is a
better way? Are you curious toknow if you can handle that,
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that stressful situation in amore. Calm manner. You know, you
have kids at home, you've gotthe chaos at work, like, Are
you, are you feeling likeeverything is perfect right now?
Because, if not, is there not sois there not a better pathway to
be able to go into this?
Yeah, and a lot of times in likemeditation or in mindfulness,
and in yoga, we talk about thebeginner's mind, or a child's
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mind. And so just even justdropping into the present moment
and being like, what would a sixyear old think about this
situation? Or what would a sixyear old be thinking right now?
It's like, most of the time,something that's presently
happening in the moment aroundthem, because they're so present
beings like children are. Sothat is something that we we
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talk about a lot with beginnersminds, Child's minds, curiosity
and keeping that reallyrelevant, and your interactions
throughout the day.
Yeah, I love that. Well, I knowwe're going to get into some of
those, the more granular pieces,but let's take a little pivot
here and talk about marketing,because I think that this is
when you mentioned mindfulmarketing and just the
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intersection of mindfulness andmarketing, my first thought was,
okay, what is that? What doesthat actually mean, and what are
the factors that you're lookingat? How is mindfulness going to
influence marketing and viceversa? How do we find that
middle ground? What makes youexcited? Where do you go? Just
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thinking about the intersectionbetween these two,
I think when I'm thinking aboutmindfulness and when I'm
thinking about marketing, I'malso thinking about kind of what
we were talking about, thecuriosity, the beginner's mind.
There's lots of components thatmake up mindfulness, gratitude,
non judgment, and that's reallywhat I kind of lean into when
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I'm thinking about marketing.
Because in marketing, we'rehumans, marketing to humans. So
at the end of the day, we'recommunicating to other human
beings. And I think thatsometimes that's easy to forget.
So when we're looking at thedata, and we're talking about
the ROI that we frequently aretrying to talk about and gather
when we're in marketing or doingmarketing and looking at, you
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know, the customer surveys orlost opportunities or talking to
past clients. I think thebiggest thing is, what is ours
as marketers, our reaction orour response to these or what
are the biases that we are justnoticing that are happening? So
when I would teach mindfulnessin Omaha, many years back, one
of the biggest things withmindfulness, in the way we show
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up to work, really was thedifference between reacting to
something and responding tosomething, and you have the
present choice to do that. So ifthe data is bad, the ROI isn't
looking good, the customersurveys, we're not hearing good
things. It's easy to make areaction about that, and, you
know, get angry and startblaming and all of those things,
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but the mindful response wouldbe to get curious, right? Like,
how can we not assume that weknow what our audience wants.
How can we use this data to becurious to maybe the topic of
something that we're talkingabout is great, but we just need
to tweak the messaging a littlebit. So how can we use this
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information respond to it? Getcurious with information that we
have, so that we're notresponding with scarcity, which
I think we see a lot inmarketing, is that's just not
good marketing. We don't want toscare people into buying the
product or making the decision.
We want them to have. We want tohear their voice, and we want
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them to make a decision, and wewant to be supporting that,
because we're humans, and so arethey. Yeah,
I love that you instantly wentback to the human to human
connection. And I also love thisconcept of of not assuming what
someone needs or is looking for.
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And I think a lot of times, youknow, we talk about, and I ran
all the time about like, thestory aspect, if you are selling
to a human being, there has tobe a story. And what role do you
play, versus what role do theyplay, and how do you help solve
their problems? And I think alot of that ties in. It's not
necessarily a perfect, a perfectone to one connection, but you
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talk about the scarcitymarketing, it's not mindful
marketing. Stop assuming whatyour audience wants. How do you
to put you on the spot a littlebit, I promise one podcast
question, we're 15 minutes in,and I'll bring one to the table.
How do you use this when we aregoing through, say, a big idea
process or a website process ora specific tactic that maybe you
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really resonate with. How do youapply this thought process to
actual execution and creation onthis side? If that makes sense,
yeah,I think also it's important to
have somebody when you're goingthrough these big things, like
Big Ideas. That is just going tobe the rock to ground everybody
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back down, because there's lotsof opinions happening, there's
lots of sparks happening,there's lots of creativity. And
if somebody in on the team cankind of be your mindful rock to
bring us back down to ensurethat we're not reacting to
anything, but we're respondingto things and making sure that,
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you know, everybody is levelheaded during the process. I
think that's like a goodbeginning piece of it. But I
think in my role specificallythat I'm taking all the research
right as an account manager, I'mbringing it to the team, and I'm
bringing it to the team in a waythat is curious, like this is
what we're hearing from our fromthis person's customers. It
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doesn't look good. We're workingon a new brand. So asking those
questions, having those openended conversations about, why
do we think they were engagingwith this in this way. Why do
you think that we lost thiscontract? What could that? How
could that impact the goingforward with a new brand? How
could we, you know, this, thequestions that we ask in that
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process of, how can we speak tothe the audience in that way and
address the problem that they'vehad in the past so that we can
get in front of it and ahead ofit, and just be curious to
explore, you know, all of thethe information and the research
that we've gotten. If that makessense,
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no, it doesn't. I like the thatthat that combination or
difference, I guess, is thebetter way to say it, between
reacting and responding. I thinkis interesting within marketing.
I also, I think that you saidsomething in terms of just the
questions that we ask, we'regoing to try to dig deeper to
find that problem and not justoffer a solution. And then I
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think the third thing is nottaking things at face value,
right? Like in our industry,especially, we hear all the
time, we've always done itthat's this way. This is what we
need to do. This what we need todo. We have to check this box.
We have to check this box. Andthat's not always the case,
right? And so having thatwherewithal to be able to take
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that step back and say, Okay,why have we always done it that
way? Is there a better solution?
And being able to navigate thoseconversations in your role and
in my role, very like, veryessential, especially when
you're looking at outsourcingmarketing within the life
sciences space.
Yeah, I think that's definitelyour role as account managers, or
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anyone that's in charge of amarketing team, is being the
person that's going tounfortunately, sometimes have to
ask the hard questions that domake people feel uncomfortable.
But when we know we're doing itwith the right intention and we
have the research to back it, weknow that we can help others put
their egos away right lots oftimes, ego start flaring in
these processes, we can try toremove the fluff and be more
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present in what we're trying todo. And that's I feel like the
core of it. Ilove it, and I think I got to
get a little deeper here on onthe life sciences side. So we
talked about just this ingeneral, and everybody that I
interview, I always have to addthis asterisk that you know
where this is B to B, but Ithink it's B to B on steroids,
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right? So you're it's not, it'snot B to C, it's not SaaS, it's
not small business. It is even,even the smaller startups have
really complex sales cycles.
There's five or six differentbuyers within a decision making
process. So what does that mean?
How do we lean into mindfulmarketing specifically within
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our industry, from a strategicand tactical perspective? Yeah,
I think that you definitelystarted my thought on this by I
think our industry has reallylong sales cycles, and they're
really unique, and they're veryinteresting, and there's
typically a lot of decisionmakers in the process for our
clients. So a lot more complexthan just a direct to consumer,
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right? We see an ad for a pairof pants on Facebook, and we
click Buy, and it's done, andthe marketing has one, right?
It's a little bit differenthere. So I think kind of what
you had spoke to earlier is wereally have to lean in to the
story, which is a little bitmore difficult to do, and B to
B, I think. And sometimes Ithink in our industry, because
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it's full of scientists and datadriven people, that creating the
story feels uncomfortable anddifferent, but we have to
connect the buyer, that thatdecision maker, to the brand,
and that's the only way to doit. So I think for us,
specifically in the lifesciences, we're looking at like,
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what's the big impact? And Iknow some brands love to talk
about it, and some brands get alittle bit uncomfortable, right?
We've had. Those conversationswith our clients that are like,
well, we're just making the drugor we're just making, you know,
this first component of it,we're not necessarily seeing the
long term like patient benefitdown the line in their
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organization, right? Um, but alot of times for our, our our
industry, we see that it's lifesaving, it's preventing
illnesses, it's enhancingpatient experience, it's
supporting regulations forpeople to keep them safe, like I
have a quality company that Iwork with, and there's their job
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is to make sure everyone'sfollowing the rules so that we
do have the safest drugs and allof that. And so their story can
lean into that is the impact.
We're keeping the patient safe.
We're keeping you safe. We'remaking a difference in the drug
industry, those types of things.
And so we want to look at doingthat through selling a story,
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but also leaning into thethought leadership of that the
education, because, again, wehave to remember, we're mostly
talking to scientists and reallydata driven people and
analytical people, so the moretransparent we can be, but also
provide the education as asupport, versus doing like, you
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know, kind of to go back intoscarcity marketing, or even,
like, some of the fad tacticsthat we see, like the trending
stuff to do, it's like thatmight not always be the best
position for your brand and foryour story.
Yeah, I think that theeducational and the thought
leadership being paired with thelong buyers journey in our
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field, specifically, there's alot of pressure to deliver
results, and I think that thatthis could take us a little bit
down, too far down the marketingpathway, but I think that this
mindfulness and and just thepractice of being able to
consume information and notoverreacting is really important
because, you know, the buyer'sjourney is six, 912, 18 months.
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And yet, a lot of times,marketing gets this rap where,
hey, we need things tomorrow,and that's not how it works. And
so this is a little bitselfishly, like, I wish that all
commercial leaders just had, youknow, maybe a tinge more of what
we are talking about, becausethe pressure that they're under
is real. And we know that withinvestments, we know private
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equity, you've got all thepressure to have an acquisition,
to do these things is there, butmarketing, throwing up a quick
campaign tomorrow isn't going tosolve these problems, and so it
has something that's built andhas that strategic foundation
for for from, really, from thevery beginning,
yeah, I think simply put, likethe importance of nurturing a
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long term relationship versusgetting a quick, small sale,
even if it is a shorter salescycle, that's just not always
going to be the best win, andit's not going to be the most
mindful, supportive piece toyour brand, either. So yeah,
so how do I implement this? I'ma marketer. I consider myself
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pretty damn good at what I do,but I'm definitely a roller
coaster individual, and thereare highs and there are lows.
How? What? What tools, whatdata, like, how do I keep this
in practice, not only formyself, but also for the
betterment of my like, mycompany's brand, my company's
marketing? How do I do thesethings? Yeah,
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I think, you know, obviouslymarketing is a journey of
learning along the way, inredefining, and I think that
that's important, and I thinkthat's probably something most
marketers know, but sometimeseasy to forget, because we work
so hard on our plans, right, andour tactics and our strategy,
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and we're like, we've got it,let it go, And then it might not
be successful, but our egos getin the way, and we're like,
well, we're not going to changeanything, because we need to
keep giving it time. Um, butagain, coming back to that
curiosity, not coming back tothe non judgment, and saying,
You know what looks like, it'stime to change some things and
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tweak some things and re look atour audience, or whatever it may
be, and always be redefiningwhat it is that you're working
through without ego, and doingit a little bit more curiously
than maybe you have done in thepast. I think it's also
important to keep especially asa marketer who's supporting
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those people that are gettingthe pressures of the revenue
cycle right is like keeping alist of some of those marketing
wins. Gratitude is a reallyimportant component of
mindfulness as well. And when wecan come back to in those
challenging moments, the smallwins, or even the big wins that
have happened during that duringthat marketing plan, let's say
about annual. Plan, or whateverit was, or a tweak that you
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might have made that was reallyimpactful. Keeping on a list of
those to help remember the workthat you're doing and how great
it is, I think, is always a goodplace to start. But I do want to
talk about flow states, which isone of my favorite things, and I
think we can use all of ourmindfulness and have that
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support our marketing strategy.
But I think finding our flowstate as creative people,
whether you're you know, mycreativity is more of the
strategy, whereas a designer ismore of the the visuals and the
copy and creativity looks sodifferent for everybody, but
Right? I love the thought of aflow state, and I think it's
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really important for everyone touse mindfulness to jump into it.
I I had never really understoodthe concept of of flow state,
not in a in a non sports way as,like, a high school athlete, I
read this book called Mind Gym,which was, like one of my
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favorite books of all time. Andit was just all through sports
psychology, and what they calledthe research, that they referred
to it as, was white momentswhere, like, you just kind of
disappear, and, yes, you're inthis flow state, and the ball is
just going through the hoop, andyou're not thinking about
anything other than what you'redoing. And then, you know, I am
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known to go on what I refer toas manic kind of up and downs,
where it just feels like I am ina for lack of a better terms
pocket of like, I could talkabout this for hours, or I could
build this strategy or thisproposal for hours, and I will
never get tired of it. And it'sjust kind of now reassociating
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That with this flow state. Soyeah, does each person have
their own version of what thatflow state looks like? How do I
find it? How do I get there? Iknow that you said the output
might be different, right? Likeyour flow state and my flow
state and Drake's flow state isgoing to be a little different,
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but they could look similar,like, just kind of talk about,
like, each individual person,like, how do they find that?
What can you do to try to, like,set that up. I hate to ask for a
best practice because I'm not abest practice person, but what
does that look like in terms of,like, how can I get in that
pocket and create that state?
Yeah, well, I first learnedabout flow states when I went
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through a leadership training inOmaha, and she talked about a
flow state. And I was like,Well, I think we all assume,
like, it's probably when youknow the vibes are right, and
you're just doing it, and it'slike, it's not actually, it's
it's a lot different than that,and it's a lot more than that,
and it does look differently foreverybody, but I think a flow
state really is, like, less of arelaxed and chill state where
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you're, like, not feelingstressed. I think that's what
people are initially thinking,but it's more of like a
confident feeling of knowingthat you're you're confident in
what you're talking about orworking on, but you also feel
slightly challenged. Okay, soI'm a visual person, and so
whenever I would talk about flowstate or think about it for
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myself, I think of like a Yorksand DODDS Bell graph. Do you
know what I'm talking about?
Yeah, in that like, if you don'thave enough stress, then you're
not going to be very productive,and you're not going to hit that
flow state. And if you're notinterested or confident about
what it is that you're talkingabout, you're going to be like
on the latter side of the bellcurve. But then if you have too
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much, it's too challenging, it'snot something you're interested
in, then you could be on theother side, but finding the very
top of the bell curve, whichlike perfect amount of
challenge, perfect amount ofstress, confidence in, you know,
the tactical plan you're workingon, or the big idea you're
creating, or whatever, that'sgoing to be your flow state
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right at the top of it. Andtypically it's like a little
quiet and still and you're justmoving and grooving. And I feel
like, for me, when I hit my flowstate, it's like, it just feels
right, yeah. And I kind of like,pull back out of the work I'm
doing, and I'm like, This is it?
This is the flow state. This iswhere the creativity and where
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the solution and the problemconverge. And I have got it all
that I can work through. So Idon't think that flow state
happens every day for people,because it is kind of like,
almost like a runner's high,okay? I every time I go for a
run, I don't get a runner'shigh, but you've just got to
have all the right things comingtogether to hit the flow state,
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yeah, for it to be impactful.
But I'm gonna give you a slightbest practice. Okay? Good. I was
gonna ask on how to try to help,to tap into those things, okay,
um, and I call them minis, okay?
It's just like a little minimindfulness thing. And this is
at least going to help you dropinto the present moment if
(30:16):
you're working on something. Andthen you can bring all of those
things we've talked about,right? Like, bring the curiosity
to the work, bring theknowledge, non judgment, to the
work, the research, all of that,right? But I kind of said it at
the beginning. My favorite thingto do is to tell myself, what
are all my senses doing? So,like, I can feel that I'm
(30:36):
sitting in a chair. I feel myelbows on the leather of like,
being so detailed and silly. Isee Alec in front of me. I see a
blue sky and white clouds. I cansmell whatever it is. You can
smell I can taste the sushi Ihad for lunch, like whatever it
might be. It's your bringingeverything to the present
(30:56):
moment, where your senses areliving, and then you can bring
the other things into it, likethe work.
I have a tough question, okay, Ihave a tough question, what
would you say if I hinted at orthought that the concept of a
flow state could be conceived asa negative because I'm avoiding
(31:18):
working because I don't feellike I'm in that flow state. You
know what I mean? Like, therehave been times where I'm like,
oh, I need that caffeine, or Ineed to, like, I need to, I need
to have something to get methere. And that, that that kind
of blend between motivation andaction and action causes
motivation and vice versa. Is ita similar concept where, like,
(31:39):
you have to put in the work inorder to have the flow state,
it's not just going to show upon a Tuesday afternoon and be
like, we're here type of deal. Idon't think so. I think the
things have to come together,right? Like, the work has to
come together. But like, youknow that, okay, I have to sit
down and do this tactical plan.
Yeah, and you might know thatyou're confident in doing that,
(32:00):
but you need something like, Ineed a cat. I need a Red Bull
before I can, like, dive intothis. It's like, well, actually
do a mindfulness exercise. Dropinto the present moment, and
that's what's going to help tolaunch you there when you have
the other things, like theconfident work, the challenge of
the work, those types of things,okay, I love that. I thought
(32:21):
mindfulness is your cup ofcoffee, your afternoon cup of
coffee, to enter the flow state.
Well,I think, I think it's, I think
it's important, because youstart searching for that
runner's high, right? You run,and you're like, Well, I didn't
feel as good as I did yesterday.
And then you don't run the nextday. And so then you start to
kind of beat yourself up. Andagain, the story that you tell
(32:41):
if you don't go back to use, youcall them minis, right? Like, if
you don't go back to use theskills that you've created,
you're you're at risk there. Andso where can, you know, I listen
to this podcast. I had thisconversation. Man, I'm fired up.
I noticed that there is a littlegap for me. Where can I start?
What? What can I do? You know, Iknow I know you talked about the
(33:02):
senses, which I thought wasgreat. And like, you know, I
talk about, like, the grounding,like, Be Where Your Feet Are,
type of thing. Where cansomebody who's just learning
this process, where can theystart and apply this tomorrow
when they're listening to this?
Yeah, I think a good startingpoint is just to observe your
thoughts and your emotions. Andagain, going back to the
(33:22):
reaction versus the responsewhen things happen. Obviously,
mindfulness is a practice. I'vebeen doing it for a very long
time, but find myself not actingwith mindfulness frequently. So
it's something that we do haveto practice. By saying something
comes in, an email comes in fromyour client, and you're like,
(33:42):
this is their want to changethis, or I've got to completely
redo this and read it's like,well, I could let my ego get in
the way and be like, I told you,I told you, this could be a
problem, that this could havehappened, you know, or I could
react to it and get upset, or Icould say, be curious. Well,
things might have changed forthem. On that end of it, I'm
(34:04):
there's no reason for me toreact. I'm going to respond, I'm
going to say, yes, we'll getthat done for you. I'm taking a
deep breath and passing alongthe work. So I think it's the
harder thing to do. I feel likethat's the easiest way to say it
is like there's two options whenthings happen to us, and it's
always the harder option is themore mindful option. But it just
(34:26):
takes practice.
Unfortunately, I adore that. Ithink that I promised that we
would do about 4040, minutes orso we're past that point in
terms of, sorry, no, no, I love,love, love, love, this concept.
And so I only have you for acouple of more minutes. I think,
for me, when I think about thetakeaways, two pathways. One is
(34:48):
that curiosity. I think thatagain, the more curious you are,
the more successful you're goingto be in relationships, at home,
with friends and at work. Themore curious you are, the more.
Successful you're going to be.
And then I love this concept.
It's really the first time I'veheard of it, in terms of the
respond, not react. Like, I haveto react to this thing right
(35:10):
away. My reaction is going tobe, what the hell like, I
thought we I thought we were onthe same page. We clarified
that, like, we're moving forwardhere, and you start to all of a
sudden, you're at 10, you're at11, and I like this thought of
like responding, becauseresponding, for whatever reason
in my head, makes it feel like Iput more thought into it. I am
gathering all of the rightinformation, and I'm going to
(35:33):
have a productive response.
Response just feels moreproductive to me. Yeah, any
thoughts on that before I askyou for final takeaways on your
I feel, yeah, I feel I like thatproduct. It's more productive,
absolutely, I think too. It'slike, well, we don't want to
just suppress like, oh, this,this thing that happened made me
(35:54):
angry, right? I can recognize Iam angry. I'm feeling that ego.
I'm feeling that anger come up,and sitting with it and just
taking a moment to be like, I'mangry. This is why I'm upset
about that. And then eventuallyyou'll be able to more cool and
level headedly come to, okay,here's my productive response to
(36:16):
the situation at hand. So I dothink that that's important to
note that we're not trying to,like, suppress something or
ignore anything, like we want tobe presently with everything
that's going on, because we arehuman beings and we have all of
these emotions. You know, it'slike, what I tell my toddler and
my six year old when we'reworking through seven emotions
(36:37):
at one time. It's like, youknow, we're going to have this
feeling, and we're not going tomake it go away, but we can just
recognize feeling angry, but I'mnot going to react to it. Yeah,
I think that's such an importantcall out the feelings are valid.
It's just how we respond to thethose feelings is so important,
(36:58):
yeah,and doing it non judgmentally,
because that's what John says,too, right? So like letting
yourself just feel the feelingfor a second and then move on,
and we go back to that, youknow, you said it so that it's
the awareness that arisesthrough paying attention on
purpose, in the present moment,non judgmentally, as if your
(37:21):
life depended on it. I thinkthat's just such a it's a great
way to to kind of put a bow onthis conversation with Stevie
before we wrap up. Finaltakeaways. You know, someone's
listening to this, they're stillhesitant, what's, what's the
takeaway? You know, what'ssomething that you would offer
to somebody at the end of thisconversation?
Yeah, I think what you saidabout mindfulness is perfect,
(37:45):
that we can pay attention first,drop ourselves into the present
moment, do it without judgment,let go of our ego, all of those
things. But I think as itpertains to marketing, I think
that we need to focus oneducation. Education, we need to
focus on the long termrelationships. What can you do
(38:06):
to turn your brand into a storythat you can sell and just
again, prioritizing thoserelationships over any quick
sells or fad marketing tactics,and, you know, listening to your
audience and taking it with agrain of salt and trying to re
(38:26):
refine what you can from there.
Soyou know, you made my day, tying
it back into marketing in yourin your final takeaway, I love
that it's so important. Stevie,this conversation has been
fantastic. If anybody islistening to this and you want
to pick Stevie's brain, I knowthat she'd be happy to do that.
So feel free to reach out to heron LinkedIn. You can reach out
(38:49):
to me if you have otherquestions. Well, we will
certainly. I've got a feelingthat the getting unstuck series
might be getting a third personto join one of the next LinkedIn
podcast recordings, because Ithink you and Brooke would eat
it up together, and that wouldbe awesome. So for everybody
listening as always, SCORR castreally would not be possible
(39:11):
without you listening and or youjoining as a guest speaker. So
thank you so much. You listenedto this episode. You thought it
was fantastic, because it was,do not forget to leave it five
star review wherever you arelistening to it on Spotify. Now
you can actually leave acomment, and you could say, Wow,
episode was so cool. Everybodyshould listen to it. And I
(39:34):
really appreciate all of those.
And until next time, we will,we'll talk to you soon. Stevie,
thank you again. Have a greatday. Thank you.
As always, thank you for tuningin to this episode of The SCORR
(40:00):
cast. Brought to you by. SCORRMarketing, we appreciate your
time and hope you found thisdiscussion insightful. Don't
forget to subscribe and join usfor our next episode. Until
then, remember, marketing issupposed to be fun.
Music.
(00:09):
Hello everyone, and welcome toanother episode of The SCORR
cast. We are well into the 50snow, with number of recordings
that we have done since June of2024 which is just incredible to
think about, that we'vebasically been putting out an
episode of The SCORR cast perweek for the last seven or eight
months now, coming up on onalmost a year. And our goal in
(00:31):
2025 is to actually have 52episodes, one per week for the
entire year. And I am soecstatic about that. I'm so
appreciative of anybody that'slistening, also appreciative of
all of our guests, and I am soappreciative and excited for our
guest today. Stevie Jelden isone of my favorite individuals
who I get to work with at SCORR,one of the best minds that we
(00:53):
have at the organization, andreally excited about what we are
going to discuss today. I thinkanybody listening to this,
whether you are in commercialsor sales, or you're in a lab, or
you're running a clinical trial,or you're thinking about
marketing specifically, you'regoing to get a lot out of this,
because we are going to talkabout mindfulness. We are going
(01:16):
to talk about the intersectionof mindfulness and marketing,
specifically within the B to Bspace, but I know that Stevie is
going to give us a ton of reallyquality tips and tricks and
nuances on how to find thatmindfulness and find our flow
states and then being able to beproductive as a human being in
2025 and if you have listened tome rant at all, either on this
(01:39):
podcast or on LinkedIn. You knowthat I talk all the time about
human to human connection, andthat is ultimately what
marketing is, and I reallybelieve that's the case for our
industry. Specifically with thatbeing said, as you can tell, I'm
excited about this. I'm ready todig in, but before we do that,
Stevie, I would love for thosewho don't know you that are
(02:02):
listening to this episode, canyou give us a little
introduction to yourself? Youknow, how long have you been at
SCORR this mindfulness? Wheredid that come from? And then
we'll, we'll jump in from there.
Yeah, totally.
Thank you for the hype up intro.
That's always lovely to follow.
But Stevie Jelden, I am anaccount manager here at SCORR. I
(02:24):
have been here for coming up onthree years, which is crazy.
Feels like three years and 75years all at once. Prior to
being at SCORR, I had wasworking in marketing, but in the
acute hospital, like acute care,hospital setting and clinic
setting. And then prior to that,I was, you know, in college and
(02:44):
school and taking yoga classesand deciding that I loved yoga
and that I loved meditation andI loved mindfulness. So I
decided to become a yoga teacherwhile I was in college, just as
a coping just as kind of addingtools to my toolbox to have some
coping mechanisms for dealingwith stress, for school and
(03:04):
managing that when I got into mycareer and those types of
things. So that's really where Icame about. It. Got my yoga
license in a long time ago,probably over 10 years ago. And
with that came the meditation.
With that came the mindfulness.
In my first job, I got a littlebit more in depth with the
mindfulness, and was able to Iwas working in Omaha, and I was
(03:28):
able to go and teach mindfulnessto a lot of organizations,
including, like COVID So likehuge fortune, 500 companies,
where there was hundreds ofpeople listening, and then also
little, tiny insurance companiesin Omaha as well. So I was able
to do that for about four years,and I loved it, because I got to
(03:49):
just teach people thatmindfulness isn't just
meditating, and what we, Ithink, connect those two. It's a
lot more than that, and it canbe really flexible and really
adaptable in the work that we doand the way we show up for work,
and the way we show up as likehuman beings, with our families
and kids and those types ofthings as
(04:11):
as human beings. I love it. Ilove the background. It's
interesting. When we startedthis podcast, Stevie in June, I
did not think how many episodeswe would have about mental
health within marketing andwithin the life sciences
specifically. And we've had thegetting unstuck series with
(04:31):
Brooke Paige Thompson over atVelocity advisory group, also a
yoga instructor, also very heavyon mindfulness, and an author in
that space. And then evenepisodes with Amanda zanier and
Jess Thompson and LaurenStockwell that that really
focused on, how do we deal withbeing a human being in this
space on a day to day basis, thebreakdown of personal and
(04:54):
professional and you mentionedthat you were going through some
of this just to deal with thestress of college. Yeah, and
then all of a sudden, it's theCOVID 19 pandemic. It is remote
work. It's we're back in there'shybrid, there's all of this
stuff. And so all of the thingsthat you are talking about,
we're going to have a little bitof this lens on, on the
marketing side. But certainly,mindfulness is just a human
(05:17):
skill that that everybody shouldbe investing in. And I think one
of the things that I'm excitedto dig in on today is, for lack
of a better way to say this,mindfulness can get a bad rap by
certain individuals certaingenerations. And I think that,
you know, when we talk aboutmental health on the getting
(05:38):
unstuck series, we we a lot oftimes bring it back down to like
at the very basis level of like,what is mental health? What is
feeling safe and secure? Whatdoes that mean? Because
sometimes these buzzwords, forlack of a better term, can can
be looked looked upon in theend, in a bad way, in a wrong
way. And so at a high level,before we even get into the
(06:02):
marketing. Can you just kind ofbreak down when you think about
what mindfulness is, where doyou go, and how would you
explain it to someone who iscurious and eager to learn about
this process? Yeah,I love that too. You said
curious, because I thinkcuriosity is one of this, like
the beginning places formindfulness, and that's a great
(06:22):
place to be, to show up, if youare interested about it. But I
think at the very bottom, base,easy level to understand
mindfulness is being present,which can you know, I think we
can all think of differently,but I think when we think of
dropping into the presentmoment, or needing to drop into
the present moment, we know thatour bodies are in the present
(06:45):
moment. We know that all of oursenses are in the present
moment, and we can quickly gothrough those to recenter
ourselves. So it's really justabout being in the present
moment. But more eloquently, Ialways like to quote Jon Kabat
Zinn, and he is, and I think forfor me being a public health
major, and for us in ourindustry that we're in being
(07:07):
very data driven and scientific,I wanted to bring forward Jon
Kabat Zinn, just because he is aprofessor. He's teaches
medicine, so he is a scientistas well, and he is really the
like modern day mindfulness, Ithink, for for our the Western
culture, at least. So he worksat the University of
(07:28):
Massachusetts, and he reallystarted this Mindfulness Based
Stress Reduction course, whichis still a present day course
that you can find all around theUnited States. He also opened a
bunch of mindfulness medicineclinics as well. So again, he's
bridging the data and thescience along with the
mindfulness. Because, like yousaid, I think sometimes
generations, if you're not sureabout what it is, you're like,
(07:49):
Oh, it's this fluffy meditationthing. It's not anything that's
science backed it doesn't haveactual, you know, benefits and
those types of things. But weknow that there is data and
science behind it, which isgreat. So John likes to describe
it very simply, and this is myfavorite definition of
mindfulness, but he says it's anawareness that arises through
(08:09):
paying attention on purpose inthe present moment, non
judgmentally, as if your lifedepended on it. And that's my
favorite definition ofmindfulness. I say it to myself
frequently, especially the lastpart, as if your life depended
on it, because that's verydramatic. And Jon Kabat Zinn
points that out frequently whenhe's talking about it, but it is
(08:31):
true, right? Like we toexperience mindfulness in our
lives as human beings. There isa you know, our life does depend
on it, because it makes usbetter, it makes us less
stressed, it makes us happier,makes us better, parents, it
makes us better, spouses,better, workers, all of those
things. SoI, I love it. I am excited to
(08:53):
talk a little bit more about thegranular aspects in a little bit
in terms of, like, what doesmindfulness look like? Because I
think that's where, you know,you can get people thinking,
it's, it's meditation, it'syoga. For some it might just be
putting our feet on the groundand, like, just having some
awareness and, and how you getto that, for each individual
(09:15):
person is, is going to be, isgoing to be a little bit
different, right? Yeah, um, I'm,I'm, I love that you were
excited about the wordcuriosity, because that's like,
for me, my favorite when I'mhiring someone, if I'm looking
for, like a top performer likethis, curiosity to do things a
(09:36):
different way, to do things abetter way, is something that
really I'm passionate about andI like seeing in others. And I
think when it comes to thistopic of mindfulness, you know,
I can hear a lot of the pushbackthat can be said around this
topic. And I'm like, Are youcurious to know if there is a
better way? Are you curious toknow if you can handle that,
(09:57):
that stressful situation in amore. Calm manner. You know, you
have kids at home, you've gotthe chaos at work, like, Are
you, are you feeling likeeverything is perfect right now?
Because, if not, is there not sois there not a better pathway to
be able to go into this?
Yeah, and a lot of times in likemeditation or in mindfulness,
and in yoga, we talk about thebeginner's mind, or a child's
(10:19):
mind. And so just even justdropping into the present moment
and being like, what would a sixyear old think about this
situation? Or what would a sixyear old be thinking right now?
It's like, most of the time,something that's presently
happening in the moment aroundthem, because they're so present
beings like children are. Sothat is something that we we
(10:41):
talk about a lot with beginnersminds, Child's minds, curiosity
and keeping that reallyrelevant, and your interactions
throughout the day.
Yeah, I love that. Well, I knowwe're going to get into some of
those, the more granular pieces,but let's take a little pivot
here and talk about marketing,because I think that this is
when you mentioned mindfulmarketing and just the
(11:03):
intersection of mindfulness andmarketing, my first thought was,
okay, what is that? What doesthat actually mean, and what are
the factors that you're lookingat? How is mindfulness going to
influence marketing and viceversa? How do we find that
middle ground? What makes youexcited? Where do you go? Just
(11:24):
thinking about the intersectionbetween these two,
I think when I'm thinking aboutmindfulness and when I'm
thinking about marketing, I'malso thinking about kind of what
we were talking about, thecuriosity, the beginner's mind.
There's lots of components thatmake up mindfulness, gratitude,
non judgment, and that's reallywhat I kind of lean into when
(11:44):
I'm thinking about marketing.
Because in marketing, we'rehumans, marketing to humans. So
at the end of the day, we'recommunicating to other human
beings. And I think thatsometimes that's easy to forget.
So when we're looking at thedata, and we're talking about
the ROI that we frequently aretrying to talk about and gather
when we're in marketing or doingmarketing and looking at, you
(12:09):
know, the customer surveys orlost opportunities or talking to
past clients. I think thebiggest thing is, what is ours
as marketers, our reaction orour response to these or what
are the biases that we are justnoticing that are happening? So
when I would teach mindfulnessin Omaha, many years back, one
of the biggest things withmindfulness, in the way we show
(12:31):
up to work, really was thedifference between reacting to
something and responding tosomething, and you have the
present choice to do that. So ifthe data is bad, the ROI isn't
looking good, the customersurveys, we're not hearing good
things. It's easy to make areaction about that, and, you
know, get angry and startblaming and all of those things,
(12:53):
but the mindful response wouldbe to get curious, right? Like,
how can we not assume that weknow what our audience wants.
How can we use this data to becurious to maybe the topic of
something that we're talkingabout is great, but we just need
to tweak the messaging a littlebit. So how can we use this
(13:14):
information respond to it? Getcurious with information that we
have, so that we're notresponding with scarcity, which
I think we see a lot inmarketing, is that's just not
good marketing. We don't want toscare people into buying the
product or making the decision.
We want them to have. We want tohear their voice, and we want
(13:37):
them to make a decision, and wewant to be supporting that,
because we're humans, and so arethey. Yeah,
I love that you instantly wentback to the human to human
connection. And I also love thisconcept of of not assuming what
someone needs or is looking for.
(13:57):
And I think a lot of times, youknow, we talk about, and I ran
all the time about like, thestory aspect, if you are selling
to a human being, there has tobe a story. And what role do you
play, versus what role do theyplay, and how do you help solve
their problems? And I think alot of that ties in. It's not
necessarily a perfect, a perfectone to one connection, but you
(14:17):
talk about the scarcitymarketing, it's not mindful
marketing. Stop assuming whatyour audience wants. How do you
to put you on the spot a littlebit, I promise one podcast
question, we're 15 minutes in,and I'll bring one to the table.
How do you use this when we aregoing through, say, a big idea
process or a website process ora specific tactic that maybe you
(14:42):
really resonate with. How do youapply this thought process to
actual execution and creation onthis side? If that makes sense,
yeah,I think also it's important to
have somebody when you're goingthrough these big things, like
Big Ideas. That is just going tobe the rock to ground everybody
(15:03):
back down, because there's lotsof opinions happening, there's
lots of sparks happening,there's lots of creativity. And
if somebody in on the team cankind of be your mindful rock to
bring us back down to ensurethat we're not reacting to
anything, but we're respondingto things and making sure that,
(15:25):
you know, everybody is levelheaded during the process. I
think that's like a goodbeginning piece of it. But I
think in my role specificallythat I'm taking all the research
right as an account manager, I'mbringing it to the team, and I'm
bringing it to the team in a waythat is curious, like this is
what we're hearing from our fromthis person's customers. It
(15:49):
doesn't look good. We're workingon a new brand. So asking those
questions, having those openended conversations about, why
do we think they were engagingwith this in this way. Why do
you think that we lost thiscontract? What could that? How
could that impact the goingforward with a new brand? How
could we, you know, this, thequestions that we ask in that
(16:12):
process of, how can we speak tothe the audience in that way and
address the problem that they'vehad in the past so that we can
get in front of it and ahead ofit, and just be curious to
explore, you know, all of thethe information and the research
that we've gotten. If that makessense,
(16:32):
no, it doesn't. I like the thatthat that combination or
difference, I guess, is thebetter way to say it, between
reacting and responding. I thinkis interesting within marketing.
I also, I think that you saidsomething in terms of just the
questions that we ask, we'regoing to try to dig deeper to
find that problem and not justoffer a solution. And then I
(16:54):
think the third thing is nottaking things at face value,
right? Like in our industry,especially, we hear all the
time, we've always done itthat's this way. This is what we
need to do. This what we need todo. We have to check this box.
We have to check this box. Andthat's not always the case,
right? And so having thatwherewithal to be able to take
(17:14):
that step back and say, Okay,why have we always done it that
way? Is there a better solution?
And being able to navigate thoseconversations in your role and
in my role, very like, veryessential, especially when
you're looking at outsourcingmarketing within the life
sciences space.
Yeah, I think that's definitelyour role as account managers, or
(17:37):
anyone that's in charge of amarketing team, is being the
person that's going tounfortunately, sometimes have to
ask the hard questions that domake people feel uncomfortable.
But when we know we're doing itwith the right intention and we
have the research to back it, weknow that we can help others put
their egos away right lots oftimes, ego start flaring in
these processes, we can try toremove the fluff and be more
(18:02):
present in what we're trying todo. And that's I feel like the
core of it. Ilove it, and I think I got to
get a little deeper here on onthe life sciences side. So we
talked about just this ingeneral, and everybody that I
interview, I always have to addthis asterisk that you know
where this is B to B, but Ithink it's B to B on steroids,
(18:25):
right? So you're it's not, it'snot B to C, it's not SaaS, it's
not small business. It is even,even the smaller startups have
really complex sales cycles.
There's five or six differentbuyers within a decision making
process. So what does that mean?
How do we lean into mindfulmarketing specifically within
(18:46):
our industry, from a strategicand tactical perspective? Yeah,
I think that you definitelystarted my thought on this by I
think our industry has reallylong sales cycles, and they're
really unique, and they're veryinteresting, and there's
typically a lot of decisionmakers in the process for our
clients. So a lot more complexthan just a direct to consumer,
(19:10):
right? We see an ad for a pairof pants on Facebook, and we
click Buy, and it's done, andthe marketing has one, right?
It's a little bit differenthere. So I think kind of what
you had spoke to earlier is wereally have to lean in to the
story, which is a little bitmore difficult to do, and B to
B, I think. And sometimes Ithink in our industry, because
(19:33):
it's full of scientists and datadriven people, that creating the
story feels uncomfortable anddifferent, but we have to
connect the buyer, that thatdecision maker, to the brand,
and that's the only way to doit. So I think for us,
specifically in the lifesciences, we're looking at like,
(19:53):
what's the big impact? And Iknow some brands love to talk
about it, and some brands get alittle bit uncomfortable, right?
We've had. Those conversationswith our clients that are like,
well, we're just making the drugor we're just making, you know,
this first component of it,we're not necessarily seeing the
long term like patient benefitdown the line in their
(20:14):
organization, right? Um, but alot of times for our, our our
industry, we see that it's lifesaving, it's preventing
illnesses, it's enhancingpatient experience, it's
supporting regulations forpeople to keep them safe, like I
have a quality company that Iwork with, and there's their job
(20:35):
is to make sure everyone'sfollowing the rules so that we
do have the safest drugs and allof that. And so their story can
lean into that is the impact.
We're keeping the patient safe.
We're keeping you safe. We'remaking a difference in the drug
industry, those types of things.
And so we want to look at doingthat through selling a story,
(20:57):
but also leaning into thethought leadership of that the
education, because, again, wehave to remember, we're mostly
talking to scientists and reallydata driven people and
analytical people, so the moretransparent we can be, but also
provide the education as asupport, versus doing like, you
(21:19):
know, kind of to go back intoscarcity marketing, or even,
like, some of the fad tacticsthat we see, like the trending
stuff to do, it's like thatmight not always be the best
position for your brand and foryour story.
Yeah, I think that theeducational and the thought
leadership being paired with thelong buyers journey in our
(21:42):
field, specifically, there's alot of pressure to deliver
results, and I think that thatthis could take us a little bit
down, too far down the marketingpathway, but I think that this
mindfulness and and just thepractice of being able to
consume information and notoverreacting is really important
because, you know, the buyer'sjourney is six, 912, 18 months.
(22:06):
And yet, a lot of times,marketing gets this rap where,
hey, we need things tomorrow,and that's not how it works. And
so this is a little bitselfishly, like, I wish that all
commercial leaders just had, youknow, maybe a tinge more of what
we are talking about, becausethe pressure that they're under
is real. And we know that withinvestments, we know private
(22:29):
equity, you've got all thepressure to have an acquisition,
to do these things is there, butmarketing, throwing up a quick
campaign tomorrow isn't going tosolve these problems, and so it
has something that's built andhas that strategic foundation
for for from, really, from thevery beginning,
yeah, I think simply put, likethe importance of nurturing a
(22:53):
long term relationship versusgetting a quick, small sale,
even if it is a shorter salescycle, that's just not always
going to be the best win, andit's not going to be the most
mindful, supportive piece toyour brand, either. So yeah,
so how do I implement this? I'ma marketer. I consider myself
(23:15):
pretty damn good at what I do,but I'm definitely a roller
coaster individual, and thereare highs and there are lows.
How? What? What tools, whatdata, like, how do I keep this
in practice, not only formyself, but also for the
betterment of my like, mycompany's brand, my company's
marketing? How do I do thesethings? Yeah,
(23:36):
I think, you know, obviouslymarketing is a journey of
learning along the way, inredefining, and I think that
that's important, and I thinkthat's probably something most
marketers know, but sometimeseasy to forget, because we work
so hard on our plans, right, andour tactics and our strategy,
(23:56):
and we're like, we've got it,let it go, And then it might not
be successful, but our egos getin the way, and we're like,
well, we're not going to changeanything, because we need to
keep giving it time. Um, butagain, coming back to that
curiosity, not coming back tothe non judgment, and saying,
You know what looks like, it'stime to change some things and
(24:17):
tweak some things and re look atour audience, or whatever it may
be, and always be redefiningwhat it is that you're working
through without ego, and doingit a little bit more curiously
than maybe you have done in thepast. I think it's also
important to keep especially asa marketer who's supporting
(24:39):
those people that are gettingthe pressures of the revenue
cycle right is like keeping alist of some of those marketing
wins. Gratitude is a reallyimportant component of
mindfulness as well. And when wecan come back to in those
challenging moments, the smallwins, or even the big wins that
have happened during that duringthat marketing plan, let's say
about annual. Plan, or whateverit was, or a tweak that you
(25:02):
might have made that was reallyimpactful. Keeping on a list of
those to help remember the workthat you're doing and how great
it is, I think, is always a goodplace to start. But I do want to
talk about flow states, which isone of my favorite things, and I
think we can use all of ourmindfulness and have that
(25:24):
support our marketing strategy.
But I think finding our flowstate as creative people,
whether you're you know, mycreativity is more of the
strategy, whereas a designer ismore of the the visuals and the
copy and creativity looks sodifferent for everybody, but
Right? I love the thought of aflow state, and I think it's
(25:46):
really important for everyone touse mindfulness to jump into it.
I I had never really understoodthe concept of of flow state,
not in a in a non sports way as,like, a high school athlete, I
read this book called Mind Gym,which was, like one of my
(26:08):
favorite books of all time. Andit was just all through sports
psychology, and what they calledthe research, that they referred
to it as, was white momentswhere, like, you just kind of
disappear, and, yes, you're inthis flow state, and the ball is
just going through the hoop, andyou're not thinking about
anything other than what you'redoing. And then, you know, I am
(26:31):
known to go on what I refer toas manic kind of up and downs,
where it just feels like I am ina for lack of a better terms
pocket of like, I could talkabout this for hours, or I could
build this strategy or thisproposal for hours, and I will
never get tired of it. And it'sjust kind of now reassociating
(26:57):
That with this flow state. Soyeah, does each person have
their own version of what thatflow state looks like? How do I
find it? How do I get there? Iknow that you said the output
might be different, right? Likeyour flow state and my flow
state and Drake's flow state isgoing to be a little different,
(27:17):
but they could look similar,like, just kind of talk about,
like, each individual person,like, how do they find that?
What can you do to try to, like,set that up. I hate to ask for a
best practice because I'm not abest practice person, but what
does that look like in terms of,like, how can I get in that
pocket and create that state?
Yeah, well, I first learnedabout flow states when I went
(27:39):
through a leadership training inOmaha, and she talked about a
flow state. And I was like,Well, I think we all assume,
like, it's probably when youknow the vibes are right, and
you're just doing it, and it'slike, it's not actually, it's
it's a lot different than that,and it's a lot more than that,
and it does look differently foreverybody, but I think a flow
state really is, like, less of arelaxed and chill state where
(28:03):
you're, like, not feelingstressed. I think that's what
people are initially thinking,but it's more of like a
confident feeling of knowingthat you're you're confident in
what you're talking about orworking on, but you also feel
slightly challenged. Okay, soI'm a visual person, and so
whenever I would talk about flowstate or think about it for
(28:26):
myself, I think of like a Yorksand DODDS Bell graph. Do you
know what I'm talking about?
Yeah, in that like, if you don'thave enough stress, then you're
not going to be very productive,and you're not going to hit that
flow state. And if you're notinterested or confident about
what it is that you're talkingabout, you're going to be like
on the latter side of the bellcurve. But then if you have too
(28:46):
much, it's too challenging, it'snot something you're interested
in, then you could be on theother side, but finding the very
top of the bell curve, whichlike perfect amount of
challenge, perfect amount ofstress, confidence in, you know,
the tactical plan you're workingon, or the big idea you're
creating, or whatever, that'sgoing to be your flow state
(29:09):
right at the top of it. Andtypically it's like a little
quiet and still and you're justmoving and grooving. And I feel
like, for me, when I hit my flowstate, it's like, it just feels
right, yeah. And I kind of like,pull back out of the work I'm
doing, and I'm like, This is it?
This is the flow state. This iswhere the creativity and where
(29:32):
the solution and the problemconverge. And I have got it all
that I can work through. So Idon't think that flow state
happens every day for people,because it is kind of like,
almost like a runner's high,okay? I every time I go for a
run, I don't get a runner'shigh, but you've just got to
have all the right things comingtogether to hit the flow state,
(29:54):
yeah, for it to be impactful.
But I'm gonna give you a slightbest practice. Okay? Good. I was
gonna ask on how to try to help,to tap into those things, okay,
um, and I call them minis, okay?
It's just like a little minimindfulness thing. And this is
at least going to help you dropinto the present moment if
(30:16):
you're working on something. Andthen you can bring all of those
things we've talked about,right? Like, bring the curiosity
to the work, bring theknowledge, non judgment, to the
work, the research, all of that,right? But I kind of said it at
the beginning. My favorite thingto do is to tell myself, what
are all my senses doing? So,like, I can feel that I'm
(30:36):
sitting in a chair. I feel myelbows on the leather of like,
being so detailed and silly. Isee Alec in front of me. I see a
blue sky and white clouds. I cansmell whatever it is. You can
smell I can taste the sushi Ihad for lunch, like whatever it
might be. It's your bringingeverything to the present
(30:56):
moment, where your senses areliving, and then you can bring
the other things into it, likethe work.
I have a tough question, okay, Ihave a tough question, what
would you say if I hinted at orthought that the concept of a
flow state could be conceived asa negative because I'm avoiding
(31:18):
working because I don't feellike I'm in that flow state. You
know what I mean? Like, therehave been times where I'm like,
oh, I need that caffeine, or Ineed to, like, I need to, I need
to have something to get methere. And that, that that kind
of blend between motivation andaction and action causes
motivation and vice versa. Is ita similar concept where, like,
(31:39):
you have to put in the work inorder to have the flow state,
it's not just going to show upon a Tuesday afternoon and be
like, we're here type of deal. Idon't think so. I think the
things have to come together,right? Like, the work has to
come together. But like, youknow that, okay, I have to sit
down and do this tactical plan.
Yeah, and you might know thatyou're confident in doing that,
(32:00):
but you need something like, Ineed a cat. I need a Red Bull
before I can, like, dive intothis. It's like, well, actually
do a mindfulness exercise. Dropinto the present moment, and
that's what's going to help tolaunch you there when you have
the other things, like theconfident work, the challenge of
the work, those types of things,okay, I love that. I thought
(32:21):
mindfulness is your cup ofcoffee, your afternoon cup of
coffee, to enter the flow state.
Well,I think, I think it's, I think
it's important, because youstart searching for that
runner's high, right? You run,and you're like, Well, I didn't
feel as good as I did yesterday.
And then you don't run the nextday. And so then you start to
kind of beat yourself up. Andagain, the story that you tell
(32:41):
if you don't go back to use, youcall them minis, right? Like, if
you don't go back to use theskills that you've created,
you're you're at risk there. Andso where can, you know, I listen
to this podcast. I had thisconversation. Man, I'm fired up.
I noticed that there is a littlegap for me. Where can I start?
What? What can I do? You know, Iknow I know you talked about the
(33:02):
senses, which I thought wasgreat. And like, you know, I
talk about, like, the grounding,like, Be Where Your Feet Are,
type of thing. Where cansomebody who's just learning
this process, where can theystart and apply this tomorrow
when they're listening to this?
Yeah, I think a good startingpoint is just to observe your
thoughts and your emotions. Andagain, going back to the
(33:22):
reaction versus the responsewhen things happen. Obviously,
mindfulness is a practice. I'vebeen doing it for a very long
time, but find myself not actingwith mindfulness frequently. So
it's something that we do haveto practice. By saying something
comes in, an email comes in fromyour client, and you're like,
(33:42):
this is their want to changethis, or I've got to completely
redo this and read it's like,well, I could let my ego get in
the way and be like, I told you,I told you, this could be a
problem, that this could havehappened, you know, or I could
react to it and get upset, or Icould say, be curious. Well,
things might have changed forthem. On that end of it, I'm
(34:04):
there's no reason for me toreact. I'm going to respond, I'm
going to say, yes, we'll getthat done for you. I'm taking a
deep breath and passing alongthe work. So I think it's the
harder thing to do. I feel likethat's the easiest way to say it
is like there's two options whenthings happen to us, and it's
always the harder option is themore mindful option. But it just
(34:26):
takes practice.
Unfortunately, I adore that. Ithink that I promised that we
would do about 4040, minutes orso we're past that point in
terms of, sorry, no, no, I love,love, love, love, this concept.
And so I only have you for acouple of more minutes. I think,
for me, when I think about thetakeaways, two pathways. One is
(34:48):
that curiosity. I think thatagain, the more curious you are,
the more successful you're goingto be in relationships, at home,
with friends and at work. Themore curious you are, the more.
Successful you're going to be.
And then I love this concept.
It's really the first time I'veheard of it, in terms of the
respond, not react. Like, I haveto react to this thing right
(35:10):
away. My reaction is going tobe, what the hell like, I
thought we I thought we were onthe same page. We clarified
that, like, we're moving forwardhere, and you start to all of a
sudden, you're at 10, you're at11, and I like this thought of
like responding, becauseresponding, for whatever reason
in my head, makes it feel like Iput more thought into it. I am
gathering all of the rightinformation, and I'm going to
(35:33):
have a productive response.
Response just feels moreproductive to me. Yeah, any
thoughts on that before I askyou for final takeaways on your
I feel, yeah, I feel I like thatproduct. It's more productive,
absolutely, I think too. It'slike, well, we don't want to
just suppress like, oh, this,this thing that happened made me
(35:54):
angry, right? I can recognize Iam angry. I'm feeling that ego.
I'm feeling that anger come up,and sitting with it and just
taking a moment to be like, I'mangry. This is why I'm upset
about that. And then eventuallyyou'll be able to more cool and
level headedly come to, okay,here's my productive response to
(36:16):
the situation at hand. So I dothink that that's important to
note that we're not trying to,like, suppress something or
ignore anything, like we want tobe presently with everything
that's going on, because we arehuman beings and we have all of
these emotions. You know, it'slike, what I tell my toddler and
my six year old when we'reworking through seven emotions
(36:37):
at one time. It's like, youknow, we're going to have this
feeling, and we're not going tomake it go away, but we can just
recognize feeling angry, but I'mnot going to react to it. Yeah,
I think that's such an importantcall out the feelings are valid.
It's just how we respond to thethose feelings is so important,
(36:58):
yeah,and doing it non judgmentally,
because that's what John says,too, right? So like letting
yourself just feel the feelingfor a second and then move on,
and we go back to that, youknow, you said it so that it's
the awareness that arisesthrough paying attention on
purpose, in the present moment,non judgmentally, as if your
(37:21):
life depended on it. I thinkthat's just such a it's a great
way to to kind of put a bow onthis conversation with Stevie
before we wrap up. Finaltakeaways. You know, someone's
listening to this, they're stillhesitant, what's, what's the
takeaway? You know, what'ssomething that you would offer
to somebody at the end of thisconversation?
Yeah, I think what you saidabout mindfulness is perfect,
(37:45):
that we can pay attention first,drop ourselves into the present
moment, do it without judgment,let go of our ego, all of those
things. But I think as itpertains to marketing, I think
that we need to focus oneducation. Education, we need to
focus on the long termrelationships. What can you do
(38:06):
to turn your brand into a storythat you can sell and just
again, prioritizing thoserelationships over any quick
sells or fad marketing tactics,and, you know, listening to your
audience and taking it with agrain of salt and trying to re
(38:26):
refine what you can from there.
Soyou know, you made my day, tying
it back into marketing in yourin your final takeaway, I love
that it's so important. Stevie,this conversation has been
fantastic. If anybody islistening to this and you want
to pick Stevie's brain, I knowthat she'd be happy to do that.
So feel free to reach out to heron LinkedIn. You can reach out
(38:49):
to me if you have otherquestions. Well, we will
certainly. I've got a feelingthat the getting unstuck series
might be getting a third personto join one of the next LinkedIn
podcast recordings, because Ithink you and Brooke would eat
it up together, and that wouldbe awesome. So for everybody
listening as always, SCORR castreally would not be possible
(39:11):
without you listening and or youjoining as a guest speaker. So
thank you so much. You listenedto this episode. You thought it
was fantastic, because it was,do not forget to leave it five
star review wherever you arelistening to it on Spotify. Now
you can actually leave acomment, and you could say, Wow,
episode was so cool. Everybodyshould listen to it. And I
(39:34):
really appreciate all of those.
And until next time, we will,we'll talk to you soon. Stevie,
thank you again. Have a greatday. Thank you.
As always, thank you for tuningin to this episode of The SCORR
(40:00):
cast. Brought to you by. SCORRMarketing, we appreciate your
time and hope you found thisdiscussion insightful. Don't
forget to subscribe and join usfor our next episode. Until
then, remember, marketing issupposed to be fun.
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