“You become what you give your attention to.”

We kicked off May with an issue about Mental Health Awareness Month, bringing light to and destigmatizing the millions of Americans—and millions more around the globe—living with mental health struggles.

Fittingly, our last issue of the month focuses on some actionable habits we leaders can practice to support our mental, emotional, and physical wellbeing.

Not only do we determine the course of our own lives, but we set an example for those in our lives and on our teams. And the great news is: it doesn’t have to be life-altering changes. We can start with small, meaningful practices that add up to change our lives for the better.

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 Welcome back to the Leader’s Playground!

What to Read This Week

The Daily Stoic Journal is my go-to read.

For more than two thousand years, Stoic philosophy has been the secret operating system of wise leaders, artists, athletes, brilliant thinkers, and ordinary citizens. With the acclaimed, bestselling books The Obstacle Is the Way, Ego Is the Enemy and The Daily Stoic, Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman have helped to bring the Stoicism of Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, and Epictetus to hundreds of thousands of new readers all over the world (including me!).

They’ve also created The Daily Stoic Journal, featuring space for morning and evening notes, along with advice for integrating this ancient philosophy into our 21st century lives.

If you haven’t used it before, I highly recommend checking it out—it’s a short, doable daily practice that can have a big impact on your life if you allow it to.

Lessons in Leadership

If you read the last issue of The Leader’s Playground, you probably know that 1 in 4 people in the UK (and over 1 in 5 in the US) will experience a mental health issue each year, and that 1 in 6 experience ongoing struggles.

Most of us—on some level or another—consider our mental health and take steps to improve it as much as we can on a regular basis.

It’s our duty as leaders to acknowledge and support our teams not just professionally but also personally—creating environments of psychological safety, empathy, and support. We can and should also model healthy and sustainable work practices, boundaries, and cultures in our organizations.

For me, a large part of mental health is about being the person I want to be day in and day out. I find purpose around the direction of who I want to be, and I take the risks and put in the effort to become that person.

As the Stoic philosopher Epictetus reminds us, “You become what you give your attention to.” With that in mind, I have many small practices that add up to promote my overall wellbeing—mental, physical, and spiritual.

These practices include:

Journaling and Reflection

I use The Daily Stoic Journal every day. The brief but meaningful insights from famous Stoic philosophers, plus daily journal prompts and space to reflect, help hold me accountable to a regular practice. They start my day with intention, thoughtfulness, and quiet.

Reading

It is my wholehearted belief that we cannot be good leaders (or humans!) without maintaining a vibrant reading habit. This is how we break the echo chamber, dance to the music others are bringing, and learn from new and fresh perspectives.

Sleep

Sleep is critical to mental health and wellbeing in general. When I’m able to, I like to allow myself to wake up naturally, listening to the birds with the dawn chorus, rather than with an alarm clock. This requires me to maintain a discipline of heading to bed at 9pm. Of course, this is a luxury that’s not always realistic, but even when it’s not, sticking to a reasonable bedtime can help us prioritize proper rest.

Exercise

I think most leaders find it easy to let our exercise routines fall to the wayside when our work lives get really busy. But we all know a healthy body helps keep a healthy mind!

The last two months, I’ve been using neck and feet exercises and Wow, they make a difference. Feet are the source of everything to do with back injuries, structural posture, etc. and we don’t take great care of our feet. Working and caring for our feet can make a difference all the way up to the top of our head.

Experimental Mindset

Finally, I aim to maintain an experimental mindset by trying new things, finding new perspectives to listen to, and implementing new practices in my routine often. I believe experimentation is the core of learning and growth, and it’s just as important in our personal lives as it is our professional ones.

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We’re inundated with experts and “experts” telling us how to live healthier, happier lives, and the information can be overwhelming. That’s where choosing to experiment and see what actually works for us can be incredibly empowering—and beneficial when we land on something that really works!

Inspired action does not come out of stress and overwhelm. It’s imperative that we prioritize self-care and rest not because we “deserve” it, but because it’s absolutely critical to success as leaders and to our health as human beings. Put the oxygen mask on ourselves before on others as we are told on the plane safety briefings!

Mental health looks different for everyone, and we certainly can’t “self-care” our way out of certain struggles. It’s our duty as leaders to encourage and model healthy habits for our teams to proactively prioritize mental health and wellbeing where we can.

And it’s equally important to recognize the areas we can’t control no matter how much we’d like to, and to be understanding, supportive, and accommodating around the mental health battles we and our teams face.

Learning from the stories of others is the most powerful way to gain insights into the life experiences we don’t know personally. This is true of mental health and so much else.

Next month we’ll explore the concept of “escaping the echo chamber” in depth, aiming to expand our empathy and diversify the voices we surround ourselves with. I really hope you’ll join me, as this topic is so close to my heart.

The Leadership Tales Podcast

This week on the Leadership Tales Podcast, my interview of Naseem Malik on his supply chain expertise and talent turns into a joyous free-flowing, two-way dialogue!

Naseem is a Managing Partner at MRA Global Sourcing, where he helps world class companies build successful teams by finding the right leaders. He is an expert in supply chain and talent acquisition with over 20 years of experience. Naseem has also recently journeyed into angel investing, which we touch on in this episode as well.

Tune into this episode as Naseem shares the ins and outs of the supply industry, including the relationship between talent and finances, the differences in hiring practices across different industries, and the 10X rule—listen now!

Be sure to subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts—and if you can, please leave a review. Each review helps put our show in front of more listeners, which means more opportunities for those who need them.

And if you know of someone you think would be a great guest on the show, reply and let me know about them. I want to share stories from leaders making a positive difference in the world—and the more tales we tell, the better.

Until next time...

I appreciate you reading this issue, and I do hope you’ll join me in raising awareness of the mental health struggles so many of us—or our dear friends and neighbors—face daily.

I’m so looking forward to “escaping the echo chamber” together next time.

Thanks again for joining me, and please do forward this on to a friend who may enjoy it—the best way to gain wisdom is in community. The more, the merrier!

See you in two weeks!

Cheers,

Colin

To learn more about my book, Be More Wrong: How Failure Makes You an Outstanding Leader, click here.