307-SYB-Podcast-Heather-Hausenblas.mp3: this mp3 audio file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.
Carol Cox:
What’s it like to make the shift from university lecturer to thought leader? Listen in to my conversation with Heather Howes and blast PhD on this episode of the Speaking Your Brand podcast. More and more women are making an impact by starting businesses running for office and speaking up for what matters. With my background as a TV political analyst, entrepreneur and speaker, I interview and coach purpose driven women to shape their brands, grow their companies and become recognized as influencers in their field. This is speaking your brand, your place to learn how to persuasively communicate your message to your audience. Hi there and welcome to the Speaking Your Brand podcast. I’m your host, Carol Cox. Thank you so much for joining me today. We are going to talk with one of our thought leader, Academy graduates, Heather Howes, and blogs about how she has made the shift both in tactically and what she the content that she is speaking about and what she’s doing, but also mindset wise and identity wise from university lecturer to thought leader. And that’s really why she wanted to come through. Our thought leader Academy was to help her to make that shift. So we will dive into that today. And then we also will talk about Heather’s thought leadership message around social health and social connection.
Carol Cox:
I know that I have been feeling the loss of a lot of social connections since the start of the pandemic, and even though it’s been over two and a half years, blows my mind that it’s been that long. I feel like so much of what I was used to doing before the pandemic has not come back yet regarding social connections. So I know how there’s going to have a lot to share with us there that will be very useful. Let me tell you a little bit about Heather before I welcome her. Heather has a PhD and as a health psychology expert, international award winning scientist. Yes. Amazing. Which we’ll talk about, public speaker and a bestselling author. Her research focuses on how our health habits affect our wellbeing. She is ranked in the top 1% of the most influential scientists in the world. She’s published seven books in over 110 peer reviewed scientific articles. That blows my mind. She is currently a professor of health sciences at Jacksonville University, so she lives in the Jacksonville, Florida area, not too far from Orlando. We actually met at an in-person event where I was speaking earlier this year. Heather, welcome to the podcast.
Heather Hausenblas:
Carol Thank you so much for having me. Excited to be here.
Carol Cox:
I am too. Let’s talk first about the content of your thought leadership message and your signature talk, the one that we worked on together in your VIP day when you’re a Thought leader Academy, because I think this is going to be something that, like I said in the intro, I am feeling and probably many of us are feeling around social connection and social health. So can you set that up for us? What exactly does that mean and why is it so important?
Heather Hausenblas:
You know, when we think about our health, we think about our physical health and oftentimes our mental or psychological health. So how our heart rate, our blood pressure, do we have some type of some type of disease? Do we feel depressed, anxious? And those are all really important for our health. But there’s another aspect that we tend to forget about, and that’s our social health. And what that means is our social connections, whether it’s connecting and spending time with family, friends, even even a stranger, the person who makes your coffee, you know, at the at the Starbucks, these are all really, really important for our for our health. And emerging research is now showing that it may be one of the most important things for our health, meaning that we need to connect with others to be healthy. And a study that came out several years ago really highlighted this by showing that our social connections and feeling socially isolated was the worst thing for overall health. Even worse, for example, the than not exercising, than being overweight, than having heart disease. And it just shows how much it actually affects us and that we need to put just as much time into fostering our social connections, that our friends and our family as we do other aspects of our health.
Carol Cox:
And Heather, when we work together on this and you shared some of these findings, I was really blown away. I think there was something about even smoking cigarettes is not as bad for you as feeling and being socially isolated.
Heather Hausenblas:
Yeah, what’s interesting is when you equate it, we all know that smoking is absolutely terrible for for our health risks right up there at the very top. In fact, it’s right now the number one health behavior that we do that that negatively affects our affects our health. But what we do find is that when you take all the science together, you kind of put it together. What we find is that being socially isolated and saying that you’re lonely has the same health effect as smoking 16 to 15 cigarettes a day.
Carol Cox:
And of course, like I you know, I’ve never been a smoker, thank goodness. And I would never dream of smoking 15 cigarettes a day. You know, I eat healthy. I make sure I exercise. And I know we’ll dig into this yet. I know that I haven’t prioritize social connections as much as I prioritize these other aspects of my health.
Heather Hausenblas:
I agree it’s most most of us forget about it. It’s something that goes on the back burner, right? If we eat, if we have a deadline for work or we jam packed our schedule with all of these to do things that we forget, you know that. We should pencil in during the day, connecting with friends, going for walks. I will often do, for example, walking meetings. And we tend to feel now in this day and age that social media is being socially connected and it can be positive and it can play a role. But for the most part, the research is really clear that the longer somebody spends on social media, typically, the more lonely they are, the worse their overall health and the worse, really that their mental health. So it’s important for people to realize that, yes, social media plays a role and we’re not going to get rid of it. But to realize that you shouldn’t be spending hours and hours a day on it and it’s not a replacement for actually being with other people.
Carol Cox:
And Heather, as I mentioned again in the intro, we’ve been now over two and one half years in the pandemic and obviously through 2020, even into, say, the first half of 2021, it really was safest for most of us to stay virtual, to do our zoom, our zoom meetings, zoom happy hours, zoom, you know, group programs, whatever it happens to be. And for sure, I get so much value out of connecting with women like you and our Thought Leader Academy or on podcast interviews virtually here. And yet I know and I have and I felt like it felt in my my body my sense that even just going to the grocery store and having that two minute conversation with the person who’s who’s the cashier checking out the groceries gives me a more like a feeling of aliveness, like I’m in this world, rather than just being on Zoom all the time. I don’t know if it’s just me, but I’m definitely feeling like more of a desire for in-person connection.
Heather Hausenblas:
No, you saw this. People were craving it and didn’t realize how important it is that that face to face interaction. And like I said, yes, close family and friends are really important, but those casual connections that can get a number in the hundreds a day, whether it’s someone you pass, like walking in the hall or the checkout person who’s bagging your banking, your groceries, you know, just saying a simple Hi, how are you? A smile that has an effect on people. And we do know that it does play, that it does play a role. And unfortunately, we just don’t do this at all. And I know even myself, for example, if I’m standing in line, the first thing I’ll do is I’ll pull up my phone and check it, as opposed to actually try to make try to make a connection connection with somebody. And we know that just the mere presence of your phone, even, for example, if you have it on the dinner table and it’s turned upside down, just the mere presence of it is going to reduce your chances of social connections. And it’s just plays a negative role.
Carol Cox:
And Heather, this reminds me, I was recently reading a book and they they mentioned this study that they did about talking to strangers, like, say, talking to strangers on the subway or at a train station or something like that. Just striking up a conversation with them, not an in-depth conversation or a 30 minute conversation, but just something small. And what they found when they asked people if they’d be willing to do this. So strike up a conversation with a stranger. A lot of them were naturally hesitant and they said they didn’t want to bother the other person, so they were hesitant to do it because they thought it would be bothersome to the person they were initiating the conversation with. But what they found when they encourage them to do it anyways is that, number one, the person who initiated the conversation with the stranger got a lot of fulfillment out of it, but the stranger who had been quote unquote interrupted, they actually got a lot of fulfillment out of it and they didn’t see it as bothersome at all.
Heather Hausenblas:
I know we tend to have this perception, right, this belief that we’re going to bother people. But I always feel, you know, nothing ventured, nothing gained. And to give it a try and maybe you’ll catch somebody in the really busy and they don’t have time and they don’t want to chat. But for the most part, we’re humans. We’re structured for for social connections to connect with people. We needed it to survive, you know, thousands and thousands of years ago. And it’s still the same to this day. But unfortunately, we put it really as the low thing for our health on the totem pole. So it’s really getting people to rethink that. Our connections are really important and people say, well, how many, how many close friends do I need and do I need to have ten? What’s the magic number? And really what the science says is as long as you have one one really strong social connection, that’s all, That’s all that you need. Obviously more will be better. But we can’t have 20 really close friends. It’s just not possible. So usually people, the sweet numbers around five or six and then as our social groups spread out, they become they play less and less role, but they still play a role in our overall health.
Carol Cox:
I remember when we were working on your talk that we had this idea like concentric circles, so you have the tight, small circle in the middle and that’s your closest family and then maybe a few friends, and then you have circles out from there.
Heather Hausenblas:
Yeah, exactly. And they all play. They all play a role. There was a study that was done at Harvard, and it’s probably the longest study now and it’s still going on. It started around World War Two, where it followed two groups of men from Boston. One were Harvard graduates and another were from Boston’s poorest, poorest neighborhoods. And. Harvard researchers followed them over time, and it’s still ongoing now to see what led to the happiest and the healthiest lives for these four these men. And what they found over time was really quite shocking. They found that it was the social connections that these men had that led to them reporting that they were the happiest and the healthiest. It wasn’t how much money they had. It wasn’t whether they became famous or not. It was really coming down to who their close friends and family were.
Carol Cox:
So, Heather, so I want I want to go into how you got interested in this topic. And so for those of you listening, we’ll come back at the end and have Heather share some specific things that we can do to to increase our social connections. I know as an introvert, it’s not always easy for me to do this, so I know I would like Heather to share some things that we can do. So before we get to that though, Heather, how did you get interested in this? Because I believe your face and your research initially were around exercise physiology, right? Yeah.
Heather Hausenblas:
So I started off really studying the psychological effects of movement and exercise. And at the point when I started this in the in the 1990s when I was working on my PhD, we’re at that, that height really of the obesity pandemic as well as a sedentary pandemic where most people didn’t move or not move enough. And most people know, in fact, if you were to survey people, almost 100% will say that they know that exercise is good for them. So knowledge is not enough to get people to to get people to move. So that’s where the psychology came into play and that’s what I would study. What would motivate people? How can we get them to exercise, How can we get them to keep exercising? What are the psychological benefits associated with associated with exercise? And me and my PhD advisor and another colleague to to actually take a look at what happens with our social connections? And do other people, whether it’s a friend or somebody at an exercise class or the class instructor, do they play a role in helping people to actually adhere to exercise and how they feel about their exercise? And at this point, it was really it was a novel study to do because it hadn’t been it hadn’t been looked at. So that was really about 25 years ago. What triggered my interest in how our social environment influences not only just our overall longevity, but also like these these things that we do every day, such as exercising.
Carol Cox:
So is it that if you have an exercise buddy or someone that you know that you’re going to go to exercise class with or walk with, you’re more likely to keep at it?
Heather Hausenblas:
Yeah, the science is clear. It’s really powerful that you have that exercise, buddy. Or if you belong to like an exercise group, for example, you’re more likely to exercise that accountability. It’s somebody else they’re encouraging you to to show up, which is really, really powerful. And what we also found are individuals that you really wouldn’t think would necessarily have a powerful influence on people’s exercise behaviors such as their physician. So if someone goes to see their their family physician and the physician, the doctors to say, you know what, you need to exercise and almost like give them a prescription for exercise, they’re more likely to exercise because they have this kind of authority figure in a sense saying that they need to that they need to do it. And we call this whole this whole notion of exercise as medicine.
Carol Cox:
Okay. So, Heather, you are an award winning scientist. You obviously are very well guarded in this area of expertise. You have a PhD in it. You’ve been working in it for a long time. Why did you decide that you wanted to step into thought leadership? Now, I know you’re the stellar scholar speaker archetype. No surprise so many of us who come from academic backgrounds, that is our speaker archetype because we love research, we love to find insights and research and we love to share it. So why did this idea of thought leadership appeal to you?
Heather Hausenblas:
You know, it’s interesting. You know, as I’ve lectured over the years, I’ve lectured for 25 plus years to students, and it’s a challenge to get them to stay engaged and interested in what you’re talking about. It oftentimes, you know, as a professor, we put the slides up, we talk about data and statistics, and honestly, it’s rather boring. And I wanted to do to do more. I wanted to go in to my lectures and actually be interested myself and excited and engaged and get the students to be engaged as well and really to to bring the data to life. And it was meant to be a major coincidence when I was attending a women’s conference and you spoke and I’m like, This is exactly what I need and exactly what I need to do because I wanted to be able to take the science that is tucked away in journals. And typically the only people who read them are other scientists and bring this data to life because it’s so important for people’s overall health and wellbeing and the way to bring things to life, which you’ve so eloquently done, is by providing the stories behind behind everything, and that brings it to life. So that was really my, my main motivation. And for me it was life changing and how now I go about and develop. My lectures and engaging my students and getting the information out there if I’m going to be, for example, a keynote speaker at an event, then I’ve really changed how I go about and go about and do things like, for example, I was presenting a study a couple of months ago at a conference and I had people come back to me, the organizer, stating that how I did it was different than everybody else and that they really liked it because I would tell some stories behind behind the data. And honestly, that’s what that’s what resonates and that’s what sticks with people and that’s what they remembered. They’re not necessarily going to remember that something is statistically significant, but they’re going to remember the story behind that data and what it means to people.
Carol Cox:
Oh, I’m so glad to hear that because I know you graduated from the Academy in August, so I haven’t haven’t chatted with you since then. So I’m so excited to get an update about how you’ve actually been using and applying what you’ve learned, particularly around the storytelling aspects of that. And I’ll and I’ll share with the listeners here that that is the thing that I feel like almost all the women who we work with, that is what they want to work on the most. Some of us are natural storytellers, but we don’t necessarily know how to connect that to our message or to the insights that we’re sharing. And then there’s others of us who maybe are not natural storytellers. We really like kind of like the hard science and the data, But then figuring out how to make that more relatable to our audience is is a great way, like you said, to make it more memorable for them. Because we remember stories much more than we’ll remember any particular chart or a graph that happens to be on the slide. Is there a story that that has some data behind it or some research behind it as an example that you would want to share with us?
Heather Hausenblas:
You know, for me, coming back to the power of social connections, and that’s what I tie I tie back some of these stories because we all have stories right, about, let’s say it’s when we have Thanksgiving, right? And that pulls people together, that whole family aspect of it. And I think for myself in my childhood and I grew up in in northern Ontario, in in Canada and in the summertime, my parents had a camp which would be the equivalent of like a cottage, a very rustic. It was very rural. We got there by 20 miles on a dirt road. There was no electricity, no running water, and we left it out there actually, like the nature and the swimming and and all that stuff was wonderful for us. But the thing that had the most powerful impact on us was was the social connections and what happened every night. We were the only place that had so called electricity. It was called the Delco system, which actually farmers used to use back in like the back in the 1920s to have a little bit of light. And my dad would go and start up this Delco system. We’d have light for about an hour and all of our neighbors would come over and we play cards for about an hour until it would begin to flicker. And I remember that so vividly. And that really had an incredible impact on on everybody’s overall health, bringing everybody bringing everybody together. So kind of the take home, I think, for everybody is to really think about their health. I mean, we watch what we eat, we exercise, but really pay attention to those social connections and how much time you’re reaching out to your friends and your family and connecting with them.
Carol Cox:
So this is what happens when you share stories. So as Heather was sharing that particular story, a couple of different stories popped into my own mind of my own experience when I was younger growing up. And this is what happens when as a speaker you share stories with your audience. It’s okay that the people in Heather’s audience or you listening right now have never gone to a cabin in Canada or don’t even know what a Delco is or have never experienced that that thing. You probably had some things pop into your mind that relate. Like, for example, I remember my sister was here for Thanksgiving and we talked about when we were young, you know, like eight, nine, ten, 11 years old. We would play card games all the time. This was the 1980s. There were I mean, there were some computers, but not computers. We were use and there was no cell phones, that’s for sure. So we would spend so many of our holiday breaks, vacation breaks, just playing cards with each other. And those are the memories that we have. And then I also remember back in 2012, my husband and I took a hiking trip through Peru with a group of other people. We never met them before, but we had a host who put us together as a group of 12, and we hiked through Peru for a week. And even though we had never met them before and we haven’t seen them since, we created such strong connections with them because we were there together every day, moving, like doing hiking. And there were there’s no wi fi, there were no phones to use. And it was just so nice to have that kind of back to that. The priority being the social connection and learning about each other rather than it being the distraction of whatever’s on the screen.
Heather Hausenblas:
Yeah, I can’t agree more. And I think of myself, you know, my childhood was the same, you know, we played the board games and we connected connected that way. And you can connect with people that maybe you don’t ever see them again like you with your hiking friends, but you have a bond. If you were ever to meet up with them again, there would be that that instant bond.
Carol Cox:
So again, for those of you listening as you’re thinking. Stories that you want to share in your presentations. Your stories don’t have to be like this. This like amazing, big, big idea light bulb moment. They can be like, that could be maybe your central story because you could also share some of these other little stories because in your audience will start thinking of how that applies to them. Similar experience they’ve had. And all of a sudden you have that sense of longing of, Oh yeah, I do. I really do want to connect back with my sister. Maybe we should play some card games or, you know, have those experiences again. So that’s the power of storytelling. It doesn’t have to be this big traumatic thing or this big idea thing. It can just be these, these little moments. So we went through the Thought Leader Academy. It was so fun to have you as part of the group. And I know that you connected with the other women who were in there and learn from from them as much as you contributed to the group as well. What what takeaways you have from the Thought Leader Academy that you would want to share?
Heather Hausenblas:
Gosh. Well, first of all, it brought together a group of incredible women, which I was really excited about because these women were from all different, all different areas, all different walks of life. So it was really, for me, fun to see how we’re successful and bringing us together with these very different areas and and seeing not only our struggles but our triumphs. And many people in the Thought Leader Academy I still keep in touch with now because it really had that really had that impact because we kind of get siloed in our in our in our area. Right. And I’m the university professor and I didn’t realize that there’s all these other incredible women with these incredible stories that really want to become thought leaders within their own area. So that for me was a big thing, as well as just hearing other people’s stories and really realizing that stories bring things to life. And that’s what we remember.
Carol Cox:
Yeah, I’m looking back at the women who were with you, and we had women who work in Hollywood who do PR for people who are in movies. We have leadership coaches, a photographer, we have a supply chain professional, someone who’s who’s a counselor, early education development, someone who’s a dietician, another woman who does sustainability for clothing. I mean, really, like you said, like it runs the gamut of industries. Yeah. What I love is that every all these women are coming together because they know that they have something important that they want to share and they want to make a difference in the industry that they’re working in 100%. All right, Heather, So as I promised, let’s come back to social connections and what are some some specific things that we can do to increase our social connectivity?
Heather Hausenblas:
We don’t need to make it as complicated as people may feel it can be. And I like to give kind of quick little takeaways as someone who breaks down the science into kind of digestible things and habits that we can put into play, and one of them is to eat meals with other people. We tend to oftentimes be on the go or I mean, there’s so many times when I’ll be out at a restaurant and you look around and people are on their phones when they’re out out with other people, so eat together, especially if you have kids. We know that when families eat together, the kids end up actually having a hierarchy to a bigger vocabulary and actually performing better in school. So there’s all these byproducts of of the simple fact of eating, you know, eating together and where you are, put your phone away. It plays absolutely no role. It’s honestly, it’s only going to be it’s only going to be negative. So I think that’s one of the I think, a fairly easy thing that we could begin to integrate. And another thing is to pay attention to your casual acquaintances, that person, you know, that you maybe you’re out walking the dog and you may see them once or twice a week to say hi and maybe start a little a little conversation. Because those casual connections, which often are, like I said, in the hundreds that we we encounter every day, actually play an important role. And we tend to we tend to think that that they do not. So I think those are two things that most people, most people can start with. And the fact of of reaching out to people and connecting, I know as we’re getting out of the pandemic, we talk about Zoom and that that plays a role. And that’s a way that we can connect. If you can’t physically be with somebody, then there’s ways now with our modern technology that we can take advantage of it to stay connected with people.
Carol Cox:
Thank you for sharing those. Heather And I will add, again, as an introvert, some of the things that I do as well is that I am not a great texter, like texting my friends and family members is not my primary mode of communication. Give me on the phone or in person and I am happy to chat with you. Chatting over text is not going to happen, but I try to be more intentional about it and at least check in once a week with people or with the family members more often than that. So I kind of make that very conscious that I need to make sure that I’m doing that. It’s kind of like, did I eat all my vegetables today or did I exercise this week how many days I wanted to. The other thing that I. You and I know I’ve talked about this on the podcast as well, is because I am an introvert and I do kind of I tend to be a little bit shy, especially in larger groups, is that that was my strategy why I became a speaker in the first place, way back in the beginning of my career, because I felt like I had a role to play at the event as a speaker. So therefore people would be more likely to come to me and break the ice and chat with me. And I felt less awkward just showing up at a large conference or an event with a lot of people that I didn’t know and I didn’t feel like I had a place for myself. So hence become a speaker at an event because I can help you if you’re if you feel the same way.
Heather Hausenblas:
Yeah, that’s excellent point.
Carol Cox:
All right, Heather, So let’s go through the questions that we’d like to ask our guests on the Speaking your brand podcast, because we want to encourage all of us to choose women’s voices and to be intentional about who we’re listening to and watching and reading. What is the favorite book that you would like to share?
Heather Hausenblas:
Oh my gosh, I read all the time. I guess as a professor, whether it’s research articles, but I’m constantly reading it. I’m typically reading reading nonfiction, nonfiction type books. And right now I’m reading a book called Platonic, which is about the power of friendship and how we have different kind of personality types and how certain personality types are drawn together and how it can help you foster foster your relationships, like, for example, you being an introvert and I’m more of an introvert myself. And just because we’re, let’s say, not the life of the party and and talking all the time, it doesn’t mean that we’re disengaged or we don’t want to be there. So it’s really important for us to to understand that. So that’s a book that I’m reading right now that I’m that I’m enjoying. But honestly, I’m reading constantly. I take a look at what the New York Times bestsellers are for nonfiction books. And then I usually go and we’ll we’ll grab one, whether it’s an audible book, because I’m outside walking the dog or right before bed to read.
Carol Cox:
Platonic or I’ll have to check that one out. And what’s a favorite TED talk?
Heather Hausenblas:
Oh, well, TED talks are phenomenal. And I probably going to come back to one that I have watched many, many times. I do believe it’s the most viewed TED talk out there. So many of you probably already already viewed it, but it’s by Ken Robinson. And the title of his talk is Do Schools Kill Creativity? He actually is, I think, an extremely gifted storyteller, and I think that’s in part what makes his TED talk so engaging is he’s not only funny, but he throws stories in throughout his talk to get to his point of how creativity is so important. And we tend to squash that in school over the subjects that are important. But creativity is also very important, like the reading and and the writing and the history all play a role, but that tends to take a backside and it does to to creativity. So he does an extremely powerful job in presenting stories around this whole idea of why we need to make creativity just as important as the reading and the writing in schools.
Carol Cox:
And a favorite.
Heather Hausenblas:
Quote, a favorite quote. Well, it’s going to cut back to it’s going to come back to movement. Most of you probably heard it in some type of rendition, but it’s a journey of 1000 miles begins with a single step. And as a as a health psychologist, I feel whether you want to start to move more or whether you want a healthy diet or to sleep better, you start with one small habit change and over time that will lead to big changes in people’s health.
Carol Cox:
Fantastic. Heather And where can listeners best connect with you?
Heather Hausenblas:
They can best connect with me. I’m on LinkedIn and Instagram and my company is called Wellness Discovery Labs, where people can connect with me there also where I do research and in writing and speaking on health related topics.
Carol Cox:
Great. And I’ll have links to those in the show notes for this episode so everyone can find them there. And if you’re interested in joining us in the Thought Leader Academy, you can get all of the details and apply by going to speaking your brand comms academy and the speaking your brand dot com slash academy. Heather Congratulations on making the shift from university lecturer to Thought Leader. I’m excited that your audience are able to learn from you, not only from your research and data, but also from the stories that you’re sharing with them. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast.
Heather Hausenblas:
You know what, Carol, Thank you so much for having me and thank you for everything you do. You’re what you do in bringing together women is incredible. So thank you.
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