From Panic to Productivity: Stress Management for Better Products & Better Teams (With Remi Ribas Policastro)

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In my twenties I felt like I was riding a car that I needed to take care of. It had gas and because it always had and it always will. So I was riding, riding, riding, not looking at that little gauge at the at the bottom of the dashboard that was telling me that I was about to run out of gas. And I did in the middle of nowhere. And it's yeah, not a pleasant experience that not if no one else should go through. So there are ways and we'll get into that. Now to just refill the tank. Welcome to the Product Agility podcast, the missing link between Agile and Product. The purpose of this podcast is to share practical tips, strategies and stories from world class thought leaders and practitioners. Why, I hear you ask? Well, I want to increase your knowledge and your motivation to experiment so that together we can create ever more successful products. My name is Ben Maynard and i'm your host. What has driven me for the last decade to bridge the gap between agility and product is a deep rooted belief that people and products evolving together can achieve mutual excellence. Welcome back everyone to the Product Agility Podcast. Now today we're joined by somebody that once again I met in Portugal. there's a recurring theme with some of the recent guests. Arriba Spadi Castro was one of the conversations we had at the very beginning of our time at a productized conference. And we wanted to get some more time in to speak because Remy bloom 's a very interesting perspective on to the worlds of product and Agile. And so it's with great pleasure that we welcome him back to the podcast. So, Remi, hello, hello and thank you so much for having me. it's a, it's an absolute pleasure. Yes. So hopefully you'll be saying that at the end too. Now i'm going to give you an introduction, Remi, Rebus, Poddie Castro has two hats. One is AB two B tech revenue hat. it's his biggest hat and he helps B two B tech companies grow revenue while building meaningful relationships with their customers and partners. He is an absolute superstar in optimising prospection, improving, closing and reducing churn. he's also, and it's been said by some, a direct sales ninja and a channel superhero. Now a second hat is one of well being and emotional regulation with a superstar of team building. Now when we discovered that emotional regulation was a skill and that as such it can be learnt and mastered, this was a pivoting moment in his life. So he packed all of his findings in that area into a nice little package so that he shared them of all sorts of crowds. Remy firmly believes that if we want what we've never had, we must be ready to do what we have never done. So Remy, once again, welcome to the podcast. it's lovely to see you. Thank you, Ben. Quite an experience to sit through. An introduction of myself. Thank you. You, you've done it beautifully. Thank you. I am very excited to have you here. And you can probably tell by my British waffling because the first topic. And this is the topic which you said to me is the maybe not these exact words, but the great equalizer in life which is stress. And we're going to talk specifically around stress management, which isn't on the face of it, you know a particular product Y kind of topic, but we will get into that i'm sure. So, Remy, stress management, what has been your journey with stress management? My journey. I guess my journey started when I realized that I was subject to stress before it was such a progressive infusion on my day to day that We adapt to that new reality of being stressed all the time we just little by little loser sleep loser temper become more reactive and that's it we think that it's part of our personality and the new version of who we are. To a point that in my case it became problematic. I burned out and I was not equipped to deal with the stress that was accumulating. I couldn't even give it a name. And so my journey started there to understand what I didn't know anything about and so little by little reading stuff, talking to people, I became more aware of interceptive sensations. So physical sensations, and how to deal and release them if that makes sense. So you mentioned there sleep, temper and being more reactive. Now i'm guessing that those are terms, phrases which mean something to most people that are listening now. i'm assuming that. These aren't just then related to stress, but we're saying that actually if you're experiencing these, there is a probability that maybe stresses have an impact on your life that you're not aware of. that's it. I mean because the symptoms arrive bits by bits, so it changes reality, then we accept reality and we're like, oh that's it. that's how it's always been, because the the human brain is is particularly bad at making prediction into the future and remembering accurately past experiences. Studies have shown that in in many different ways, and one that is particularly eloquent is when we put people through a bad experience, an uncomfortable experience, and people remember just the peak of that experience and the last of that experience. And the rest of it is and significant in our memory, which gives us an incredible adaptable power because we can get used to pretty much anything in a good way as in a bad way, and and stress is is just one of them. We tend to drink coffee like the cups of coffee, like they are Tic Tacs, when they have like a pretty strong impact on our nervous system and our stress levels. Now an important point Stress is not bad. Stress is when it's managed. it's a good thing. It makes us focus, it makes us driven, it makes us sharper. Stress is the the hormone behind stress is that cortisol as you may know and generating it in the morning, it's perfect. It makes us do stuff, getting through To Do List and getting driven, moving on and so on. Now the problem is when we don't regulate that during the rest of the day, then we have that accumulation of cortisol at night, in the evening, and this is what keeps us up. And then the sleep is kind of the first brick of the puzzle, because when we start losing our sleep, it has all sorts of impact on the next day, on the next day, on the next day. So it's it starts accumulating like. im I'm definitely in a a situation where a good strong sense of urgency on my To Do List does get me started very well in the mornings. I find that if I can kind of have a little bit of stress, if I put the pressure on a little bit, it does keep me motivated. What I'm wondering then is we know that too much stress then will impede our ability to what, to focus, to concentrate. It gets in the way of our decision making. If we leave it unchecked and it just builds and and up up and and up up or? That's it. Yeah, you've said it. So it's about being intentional. it's about knowing when we're stressed, why we're stressed and getting on board with it. Not being in denial or not being in the in the in the position of the victim being victimized by own stress. You know, stress is something that we should manipulate and so that we instrumentalize it in our life in order to be productive, in order to be driven, in order to be competitive, for example, but not to just simply open the door and to the potentiality of being eaten up alive by our stress levels. Yeah, because it's no fun. it's no fun for us. But this is also no fun for people around us. Maybe Co workers, family members or pets. All pets. Yes, all pets. My my wife said to me last night, she said we've got a cat, his name is Giles and Giles is great for your mental health, she said. Because once, because he get gets you to switch off and relax. Because once he sits on you, you're not going anywhere for like five hours because he's not going to move and you feel really breaking them up. But pushing Charles to one side, as I often have to when I need to do something, Are we then saying that if we can use stress as a tool, we can motivate ourselves to achieve more than if we just become a slave to stress? that's it. it's a it's a genie in the bottle. We need to keep the bottle so that we can put the genie back in it when we need to, and especially when we need to recover to rest, which is sleep. Because then from there, this is where this is the pitfall, This is when things go bad, when our sleep start to be impacted. So we are saying that we can achieve more and we can increase our performance in our professional lives and our personal lives if we can find a way to steer and I suppose throttle back and accelerate our levels of stress given that context we're in at that point in time. So for each day we keep going through, but it's when we can't throttle back the stress that then we go to the evenings with too much cortisol on our bodies, which then impedes our sleep and then impedes our sleep. So we wake up the next day and we're then on the back foot and it's going to be harder for us then to, I suppose, instrumentalize our stress because we're fatigued. Is that a fair summary? that's a hundred percent And so we need to be more intentional about how we manage our day and. And don't let our days drive us but game control game agency over our days basically. So I want to loop back a second and you feel free not to go into this if it's a topic you don't want to touch on. But you mentioned about Burnout for you personally like what happened there. Oh, I I like. i'm a cliche. I I did the whole menu. Like we are in in front of our little spreadsheets and in zoom calls and travelling the world to do meetings. But like, it's not, it's not that serious, it's all just sometimes we tend to forget that it's just all the game. And I did to burn out. I definitely forgot that it was just a game. I thought it was way more serious than it actually was. Yeah, panic attacks and the first ones, they're pretty scary because you you, you don't know what's happening. Or at least seen seen seen you, you, you, I I I I I I I didn't didn't didn't know what was happening and it's kind of a yeah of experience experience of of dying dying and. and, because your body's not responding that way that you want in a pretty intense way. So yeah, made me reflect what was important, but there's no is. catharis. cathardsis. catharsis. Like everything happens bits by bits, but it was certainly the trigger, the turning point.'ve I've definitely had panic attacks. Are panic attacks the same as anxiety attacks? I would say so. I would say so. Well, I've had a few of those in the past and were stress related. I'm sorry sorry hear hear I'm that. that to I'm sorry fine, Maybe the man I am today and i'm quite pleased with that. I think it's been a great experience. I look back at those times and I wouldn't have avoided that learning because it means that I wouldn't be able to deal with as much as i'm able to deal with now. And I think that's something that I believe people choose to, don't choose to. I don't No one chooses to do it. But I think when you have the opportunity to. Learn and to further yourself and to evolve. We get very worried that we're letting go part of ourselves, that a part of our identity is being shipped away because we're no longer that person who does that thing. we're now a new person does something differently and people say, well, i'm not. I feel really uncomfortable about me changing, like who will I be? And I think that holds people back to doing some of the the work, the necessary work perhaps to avoid a life of lack of sleep, of stress, of never quite achieving what you're potentially capable of achieving. Yeah, no, that's that's quite true. And and look, I, I, I, I embrace everything. The these panic attacks for sure. And i've learned a great deal from them. Now I do, I tend to do think that we learn actually a lot more in doing failures and hardships, but when it comes to health related ones and especially self inflicted to some level, because it's it's not necessarily conscious, but it it's self inflicted stress is. Now, we don't honestly have a choice in that given moment or we don't feel like we have a choice, but I think we can be a lot more vocal and a lot more, what's the word, a lot more united or compassionate and not try to hide this under the rug. And On the contrary, like putting on an open, on an open place, so that when it arrives, when it happens, we don't on top of that pretty intense or traumatizing experience, feel isolated or feel like something is wrong with us or feel that we're unworthy or that we're weak or because all of that is created by just a lack of communication. And. And yeah, I think we can do, we can do and a lot better with coming generations to talk about mental health, to talk about stress management, to talk about emotional management, 'cause as much as we do, as much as we. Strive for we're humans and nothing will ever be worth ruining our health or impacting negatively people around us. I see this as a twofold thing because I think people would be listening to this thinking, well, I don't feel like I suffer from stress. Why is this important to me? And I was wondering what would I say to that person? I think what you were saying a second ago about it's a lack of communication. I think some people, it's the ability to communicate it because they haven't got the words to communicate it, they haven't got the labels. And I think I take the same amount of courage when you're not sure how the other person 's going to respond to it. So I think kind of understanding this and having some idea about how we can help people through it is a great service we can give to our fellow human, our peers, our colleagues. To actually put ourselves in a position where if someone does have the courage to try and communicate how they're dealing or not dealing with these types of situations, it means that we're in a stronger position to have that conversation with them. So I think this is important for both those that do feel that they are. Kind of living with or that stress is overtaking their life versus those that actually think, oh, i'm all right, actually, there's a service we can offer to our people around us which could be very useful for them. So if we if we kind of take this idea, but what can we do then? So one is, yeah, we can learn about it. We can be there to talk to people, to listen to people. And if we flip it from talking about what is stress and what causes it to actually, how do we then manage it? What are the things that we can do to, to turn the tide and to actually use it as this Nitro for productivity? Yeah, that's it. that's it. Harness it so that it it it it, it feeds us, it drives us instead of not listening to any signs on the way and just running out of of gas and it could be in the middle of nowhere and and then you have a bit of a hike to go to the next petrol station and it's lonely and it's hard. And to take the the metaphor about running out of gas because this is kind of what it is, in my twenties I felt like I was riding a car that I needed to take care of. It had gas and because it always had and it always will. So I was riding, riding, riding, not looking at that little gauge at the at the bottom of the dashboard that was telling me that was was about about to to run run out out of of gas, gas.nd and I I did in the middle of nowhere. And it's yeah, not a pleasant experience that, not, no one else should go through. So there are ways, and we'll get into that now, to just refill the tank every now and then. Sleep is an important one. Sleep is, sleep is actually both a way to fill up your tank and a way to know how much you have left in your tank. Because if sleep is bad, it means that there is underlying causes of it that needs to be addressed as well. So if people are recognising what you're saying there, are you saying that the thing to do is to, it's not about listening to whale sounds and buying some lavender so that you can fall asleep more easily. i'm assuming there's things that we can do before our bedtime routine to help lower those cortisol levels so that we can sleep rather than just trying to make our sleeping environment better. So sleep environment it does help. I, I, I don't have a particular routine or ritual but sure if it's if it relaxes people and and it gives them into a space where they feel more comfortable at ease. So one of the thing and it's very important is exercise because before anything we are a nervous system and so if we don't release tension from a nervous system. Our nervous system will not switch from sympathetic one, which is the stressed one the driven one? the fight or flight one and into the rest and digest one the parasympathetic one which is the one we need to be in to fall asleep and one of the common misconception around calming down is that it's best not achieved through trying to calm down but actually through first exciting ourself to a point where our body is able to make that shift from sympathetic to parasympathetic because every day microaggression passive aggressive email that guy that didn't respect the traffic light or the guy who didn't pick up the the poop on his of his dog on the sidewalk and you stepped in all of these tiny stuff are building up you're tapping into your your sympathetic nervous system now how do you make that shift that transition into your parasympathetic one Well. Some exercises consist of calming down, calming down South, slowing down your breathing, etcetera, but it it's effective to a point. The best way by far to slow down and shift your nervous system activity is by exciting to a point when effectively you can release it. Basically it's simulating you being chased by that lion, that or or ancestors, and our body evolved to do you're alert, you run away from the lion, then you calm down. If you observe animals, they do that super well, they get scared off, they run like hell, crazy and then they calm down. So if your audience is listening to this on a podcast with headphones and a quick exercise that they can do is walking in a park, They walk slowly, slowly and then out of nowhere they will run literally like there is a lion behind them. And they will do that for about a hundred meters. a hundred and fifty meters. Then they slow down and then they stop that state once this breathing has calmed down, when the heartbeat has calmed down, that state is part sympathetic state. This is the state when we are able to relax, let go, and sleep, because sleep is about letting go. that's exactly what it is. This is about accepting that we going to go through a tiny death and hopefully the next day we wake up and that's a terrifying way of pressing it. But but sleep it is. it's it's accepting the inevitable that our body needs to shut down. But for a lot of people, sleep anxiety is a is a thing because that ability to let go is is is a skill and we best explore it by first learning how to stress your nervous system for real. Like real good stress, exercise is a beautiful one. Or release basically like if you see children. They scream. They cry like there is no tomorrow, like the the world is ending and after they're calm, they probably fall asleep. Actually, they they they literally cry to themselves to sleep. Now we can do that in an intentional way so that we don't have that emotional response that is coming out of nowhere and it's uncontrollable. We can generate that emotional response which is nervous system activity. it's the same and we package it right at the right time for us so that then we can shift to parasympathetic stuff. I feel that was a very long answer. No, I know well it was a long answer, but it wasn't too long. You think it it it's helpful, it's it's we're on the way, we're on the way. So yes, there is, there is sleep and there is ways to then really engage the right kind of sympathetic mode so that we we can relax and we can kind of dissipate some of that cortisol if we find ourselves more in the moment. So we're sitting at our desks, we get that passive aggressive e-mail and we've just feel this reaction, something 's going on for us, right? How do we manage our stress in the moment? So i'm what i'm saying about is with less planning, with less forethought, how do we deal with those in the moment stressful situations this this is a, this is a really nice one. I I do it all the time. My wife has adopted it and i'm converting more and more people. So the first step is to feel that boil that is coming up. it'd be like oh oh, this is a nice one. I can feel my ego getting crushed or and then as soon as we have that feeling. If we're at home and a good few of your listeners, i'm guessing, or are working remote, very simple. You go to your bedroom, you grab a pillow and you scream. You scream your heart out and your pillow. You wait. You see, perhaps that e-mail requires a second scream, but a third one. And then I guarantee you a hundred percent you can come back to your desk and it's like nothing happened this is fascinating because when we are in that moment we receive that email it's very towards their ego it's like how dare that person this is insulting let me see kind of response i'm going to make who do you think they are and so on and so forth you go scream you come back nothing changed the same email the same situation and yet you don't have that urge that drive to like get justice get fairness whatever maybe all that narrative is gone because it's purely a nervous system activity that is triggering an internal narrative so this is the remote the home office pillow situation if you are in an office it works really well going to the bathroom. Biting into your hand and doing it, just screaming. The thing is it it looks weird. I, I, I, I can see, I can hear. But it works. It really works and it's it's it's sort of an emotional hygiene like we brush our teeth to get rid of the bacteria and then this is the same. We bite into our hand and we get rid of that like residue from our emotional system that we don't have any purpose for. And if we don't do it, if we don't have that emotional hygiene in our day to day life that emotional awareness of like avoiding drinking coffee after two PM or avoiding working out at night or not realizing that we are boiling inside and having that little scream that can help us move on and go to something else then it accumulates and this is where you have autoimmune diseases this is when you lose sleep for good and so on and so forth all of that is a. is a Is because we spend too much time into our sympathetic nervous system which is immunodeficient. Our immune system needs us to be in part of sympathetic mode so we get more and all the entrepreneurs out there or it's it has a real impact on the business bottom line people less sick is less sick. Sick leaves is more productive. it's we tend to see Wellness as like a nice to have and it's in the perks and stuff but it's actually, and i'm truly convinced of that a business opportunity how to be more resilient. How to be more adaptable. How to be to innovate better how to have stronger teams and all of that is achieved through regulating our emotions. it's fascinating when I think about it and the times when i've gone into an empty room just to shout or do something like that, just to relieve something. I remember my dad used to randomly shout. I thought he was just weird, maybe as if because he was releasing some stress, i'm not sure. But I do wonder that a lot of us are I think, schooled in some ways not to have those showings of not aggression, but that outpouring to make noises, to take ourselves in a room and do something to help us just relieve some of that tension. I think maybe a particularly, I know British cultures known for it, right The stiff upper lip, the not wanting to seem like we're flushed to not do anything what could be seen as a bit odd or strange. But I think that even just the thought of doing something like that I find quite cathartic, like it gets something off of my chest and helps clear my mind. So I will be definitely trying that. Please do and let me know. I will. i'll record it and and i'll put it on as a trailer on the next podcast. Sounds good. Yeah. Again, I think animals or or or when you're talking about your your your dad. This is something we can see of of animals when they get stressed out, like two dogs at meets. If there is like a little moment of uncertainty and if like they're not clear about the intention of the other, it's going to bark, it's going to run it's and then that's it. it's gone. They release that tension and now they're chill. they're just walking around. And The thing is or or we live in a very the urban life is very sanitized. So we lost that touch with what's happening internally. The fancy word is interception. it's basically the ability to recognize what's happening inside our body. And it's critical because if we don't build that interceptive ability, we have no idea what's happening inside our bodies. And then it's a black box. It works until it doesn't And when it doesn't you you don't even know where to start. I think we need to draw this episode to a close. We give ourselves enough time to record. Another episode. So what i'm wondering, Remy, is that we've covered quite a lot of ground. we've looked at this is the effect of stress and ways to manage that stress. If people are listening and they're recognising what you're saying and they're wondering where to start or where to find help, what advice would you give that person who has resonated with what you've said but is unsure as to the next step that they should take? Thank you for for opening on that because it's a very important point. I am not a medical doctor. I am not a therapist. So all the advice is that i'm giving or for managing moderate levels of stress, not life threatening level of stress, and it's extremely important to require appropriate care for anyone that is experiencing symptoms that are beyond discomfort. Now the best place to start is. Really noticing building awareness and it's I am addicted to podcasts and to having constantly something a read, a listen, talking to someone, etcetera. But the best place to build awareness is by cutting off distraction. Having that moment, Tim Ferriss has a great say on if you cannot meditate for ten minutes, if you don't find the time to meditate for ten minutes, then you need twenty So awareness is very simple. It means taking the time can be a walk, can be seated meditation in silence. it's anything where we're just observing our body and looking at anything That is not something we should accept, whether it's discomfort or pain or or numbness. Numbness is a is a big one as well. And then little by little, as we build awareness of our body, we understand better what we need, whether it's not drinking coffee after two PM or and we're all different. My routine is very early. I I I wake up in the early hours of the day, but I don't have an alarm that this is just my my circadian rhythm. So everybody is different. And from awareness, we're actually able to build something that fits us and not something that is the one size fit. All because this is doomed to fail. So awareness, awareness, awareness, worse. How do I feel for real? Yeah, to take some time out, if you notice some of it doesn't feel OK feels different, feels numb, then take ten minutes to see if you can understand what that is. And it's something you said earlier, but it's these events happen and it's just our nervous system triggering a story. And I think that's quite a lovely way of putting it. So if you're listening to this and you're wondering what the hell 's going on for you, if this in some way resonates with you, then try and take ten minutes out and see what you can do to. Learn more about yourself in relation to that and I suppose and if you do feel that it is something that is not manageable, then do seek help from a professional. don't let it go UN unshared because it's amazing the kind of support people can get. that's it. So building. Maybe if I can just sum up in in a in a nutshell, building awareness. it's about making space. Now some people feel better doing it. Walking, some people feel better doing it. Resting in silence. Or journaling. Journaling is a very powerful tool to reflect and be like, all right, I cannot go anywhere. Here is a paper, pen and paper. How do I feel Part by part. And i'll write down and i'll write down and then it's self discovery. Look it's it's scary for most people, but I don't know anyone that done that been down this road and regrets it. it's so rewarding. The relationship that we build with ourselves is. Away. Is that a word? Yeah. I think if it isn't it's it's it's beautiful, it's wonderful, incredibly rewarding. And the people around us, it's contagious. The people around us benefit from it. We benefit from it. And that's it. it's a chip in in the Humanities Kitty. Lovely. So Remy, thank you for motivating me, and I hope lots of other people to do that introspection and to, you know, use stress as this fantastic tool that it can be rather than be something that uses us. If people wanted to find out more about you, is LinkedIn the best place for them to go or is there somewhere else they could head to? Yeah, it's the it's the most central. From there there is a a link to my website, to my post, to my medium post and stuff. So yeah, LinkedIn is the is the most central one. Brilliant. Well, thank you very much and everybody thank you for coming on this little journey with us. If this episode has meant something to you and you do want to talk about anything that's been covered, then feel free to, I don't know, drop me ADM on LinkedIn, maybe even kind of contact me. We can't perhaps offer you professional help, but if there is something you wanted to bounce off us and by all means reach out, i'm sure we'd happily deal with anything that comes up. And if you feel that this episode is maybe useful to somebody that you know, then why not share it with them? Who knows, maybe it will make a difference to their day. So thank you very much everyone listening Remy. Thank you for coming along again and we shall be back again next week. Awesome. Thank you Ben, and lovely talk.