S32 Ep6: Paul McKenna - Harnessing the Power of Positivity

In this episode, Steve speaks with best-selling author and hypnotist Paul McKenna about something that affects all of us — stress at work. Paul talks about the impact stress can have on workers and gives practical tips to care for yourself and the employees you lead, even in the fast-paced, “always-on” security industry.

Key Takeaways:
1 It’s important to be mindful of signs of stress before it gets to burnout.
2 Mindfulness, hypnosis, and other types of self-care can significantly reduce stress.
3 For long-term success, employers should look to balance output and productivity with their employees’ mental and physical well-being.

Tune in to hear more about:
1 Why we’re more stressed than ever (1:10)
2 How to identify signs that may lead to burnout (3:26)
3 How companies and leaders can support their employees well-being (12:32)


Standout Quotes:
1 “It's right now a massive issue, anxiety, stress, fear, worry, because if you think about it, you turn on the TV, or you open a newspaper, you're under attack. It's the war, it's the virus, it's the economy, it's something or other. And so understandably, post the pandemic, we were out of the biological pandemic, but we're sort of in a psychological pandemic.” - Paul McKenna

2 “ Now the thing is, addiction is about changing your state of mind and body, so drinking, drug taking, gambling, sex, shopping, television and food, particularly sugar food, are the world's drugs of choice. And everybody in the world at some point feels too much stress. They feel overwhelmed, and so they resort to something to change how they feel, some of the things I just mentioned. And in a sense, some people, they form an addiction to their work because they can, you know, forget about everything else that's going on in their life. They might not have to think about their relationship or, you know, some other stress, from their family or something. So they immerse themselves in work.” - Paul McKenna

3 “Years ago, when I started corporate training, one of my colleagues, I asked him, ‘Why is it corporations pay so much money to have their staff trained?’ He said, ‘Well, I can show you,’ because look, they see that ‘days sick' goes down, the productivity goes up. So basically, by staying in the zone of balance – you've got enough output getting things done, versus balance, which is recovery time, in my mind. You get that mix right, then you're going to be more productive in the end.” - Paul McKenna

Mentioned in this episode:
• Dear Infosec

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From the Information Security Forum, the leading authority on cyber, information security, and risk management.