Marketing Under Pressure: Managing Stress, Sleep and Decision-Making

James Lawrence: Welcome back to the Smarter Marketer podcast. I'm here today with Dr. Jemma King. Jemma, welcome to the pod.

Dr. Jemma King: Thank you for having me.

James Lawrence: This is, um, this is going to be an exciting one.

So I saw Gemma on stage at South by Southwest, um, back end of last year in a panel discussion with, with one of your clients, double Olympic gold medalist, Shana Jack, um, as well as the founder of Sleep Aid. And the panel itself was very much around sleep. But it started to branch out into other areas relating to workplace stress and business decision making and performing under pressure.

And I think so many of the points on that panel kind of got me thinking. Um, so I thought I'll try to get Gemma on the pod and you said, yes, I'll do it. Um, we've managed to kind of coordinate. Schedule. So by way of introduction through her firm, biopsych analytics, Gemma works with high performing companies, teams and individuals in ways to reduce stress and burnout decision making under pressure, as well as getting the most out of teams.

Um, you've worked with a very broad range of kind of. Individuals and organizations, but including the Australian Olympic Swim Team, the Australian Defence Force, McKinsey, Atlassian and many more. And I thought it'd be awesome to get you onto the pod because I think so many marketers are dealing with.

Pressure change burn out. It's been a challenging couple of years in the industry, and I think all the change will continue to make it more so. So it would be awesome to get you on the pod. And I think we're chatting, um, off air just around kind of, I guess your, um. perspective or how you got into the space and probably coming at it from a slightly different viewpoint than many.

So I thought like, can we just talk a bit about your journey and, and, and starting biopsych analytics and how we kind of came to, to be in this space?

Dr. Jemma King: Well, it was purely accidental. And I think like a lot of people, like the journey was squiggly. There wasn't just this trajectory where I was set out to be doing this job.

And so I, you know, I had a plan. It was, You know, I was stressed. And so I was at uni and I went to do honors and do a PhD and I was like, what should I study? And what, you know, most academics do, do study what they're not very good at, stress. And so I, um. I was just really lucky to work with these populations like the, you know, Australian Special Forces and then I got asked to work with the Olympic swim team and the Australian Institute of Sport and then McKinsey was like, come and work for me.

And I was, you know, it was just serendipity that everybody was stressed at that moment. It became super interested in that topic. And, um, so I was kind of dragged into it. I thought, well, I better get a, uh, you know, a business. And, you know, funnily enough, I'd actually got it. I have a business degree, but when it came to things like ABN and, you know, all of that practical, how to run a business, do your tax bad statements.

I had no idea. I could tell you all the complex theoretical frameworks around leadership, management and business, but like totally useless when it came to you know, the practical stuff. So my business partner was very good at that and so does the back end. And I do the front end sort of creative looking at the research.

I did lots of research. So my business is really about bringing and educating people with practical, implementable, science backed strategies on how to manage stress and operate better in their environments. And I actually do a lot of my own research. So I, you know, I love, you know, I'm super inquisitive and I'm always wanting to find out more.

But, you know, uh, research doesn't really pay the bills. And so that's my love. And then I will then translate what I find into organizations and that's, you know, consulting. So I'm a sort of a hybrid. Researcher slash consultant

James Lawrence: kind of awesome though, isn't it to be able to kind of have a foot in each camp still have a foot in the kind of academia and research and probably the stuff that it's probably in your DNA to some extent and also have that practical real world, both from a, I guess, financial viewpoint, but also in terms of implementation and kind of being out there in the field, which is kind of cool.

Dr. Jemma King: I mean, it's super rewarding. I get people come back after, you know, I might have taught them years ago and they're like, that thing you told me was just instrumental in me being able to get a promotion or, um, manage my family life as well as, you know, a really stressful job. And Just seeing sort of like this, people have epiphanies and have this realization that this is in their hands and if you just have to understand the mechanisms underneath which you know your Physiology and your psychology run on you can actually do amazing things and I think that's you know, super rewarding so I, you know, I really can't ask for more.

I'm just really, you know, super happy and excited to get up every day.

James Lawrence: From what I see, it's kind of harder and harder at the moment. I think, like, there's kind of macro economic challenges that have kind of been there for a few years. Um, Marketers are generally dealing with lots of change, and we've kind of in the last year or so, this is in this kind of wave of technological change and generative AI and chat GBT and, um.

Dr. Jemma King: It's not a playbook. Like nobody, like all those, um, theories that you learned maybe at uni in marketing or, you know, your mentors told you like chuckle that stuff out. It's a new world order and nobody knows. Nobody has the answer and it's shifting so frenetically and in different directions. So I think everybody's is out there.

No one. Um, has the key.

James Lawrence: Yeah. And change is hard, right? And it's, it's scary. And the marketers are under so much pressure in house. Marketers are kind of dealing with external stakeholders, pressure from above, trying to keep their team going and

Dr. Jemma King: trying to

James Lawrence: keep on top of the chain. Like, is that something that you're

Dr. Jemma King: saying?

Stress is kryptonite creativity and markets have got to be creative. Like that's one of their, you know, critical, um, skill sets. And when you're under pressure, you don't have a formula, you have made several mistakes in the last, you know, campaigns or whatever. It is terrifying. And I know that uncertainty is actually more painful and stressful than non negatives.

So you are better off knowing that's bad than having uncertainty in life. Certainty causes enormous amounts of stress. So yeah, I really do feel really sorry for, for people who are trying to lead or trying to, you know, make their way in the world, in this crazy world at the moment.

James Lawrence: What, what kind of, um, practical strategies you, you know, you're working with team?

I think the, the themes I kind of went through there are probably not. Um, a distinct marketing, right? They're probably more applicable to all kinds of teams and businesses. But what are the kind of practical strategies that you kind of work with teams to try to implement in terms of managing stress, managing burnout?

Dr. Jemma King: Yeah, I think that, um, what I always teach is my foundational. You know, educational element is you cannot expect to lead others, organization or campaign or anything unless you first manage yourself. So if you haven't got your, you know, as you can say, proverbial shit together, there is no way that anyone's going to be convinced by you, trust you want to be led by you.

or pay you big money if they can see that you aren't even coping coping in, you know, just the the basics of your life. And what does that mean? Like, are you turning up a bit disheveled and tired because you're not having got your sleep sorted? Are you, you know, out of shape, overweight, underweight? Uh, are you um, are you engaging in Um, dopamine enhancing behaviors that are probably not advantageous, like drinking, taking drugs, um, whatever it is, vaping, whatever.

Um, do you have fructuous relationships? Are you not coping with your primary, you know, significant other? Do your kids still talk to you? Uh, do you, um, have a formula? Do you, have you got exercise, sleep, diet, um, time off? So sort it out. Do you know what you need to be a high functioning individual and if you said no to any of those Questions that would be my first place to start is start with yourself Start with your physiology your psychology your primary relationships and then you can have effect Then you can be creative then you can be the type of person that people want to listen to pay money Leave and be led by And I think people get that wrong.

They think that might be there's something external out there that I need to get, give, do, and once I've got that, then I will work on myself, but people kind of get a vibe off you. People, when you walk into a room, um, they may not know exactly what it is, but people will be subconscious feeling around you.

Like, I don't know, there's something off about that person. I don't know what it is, but when I, you know, I'm risking it. Yeah. you know, a big campaign, a big, you know, contract or, you know, a big budget. They just go, I don't know. Maybe I'll give it to that other person. They may not look as like exciting or creative, but they look a lot more stable to me.

And I think because it's everything out there is so unstable and so chaotic, people want stability and you have to embody that sense of trustworthiness and stability.

Think that, you know, if you, you, you, first thing is slate. You know, like I said at South by Southwest, everything stems from there.

And I was, you know, I would Um, but as a stress researcher, I'm like, man, this is, this is, this is it, you start there and because if you're tired, you cannot do anything else very good.

James Lawrence: . And it does, it does feel that kind of looking up to yourself first. It is kind of the oxygen on the airplane, right?

It

Dr. Jemma King: sounds boring and everything, but like, oh my God, it's, it's, it's so true. You have to look up to yourself.

James Lawrence: I think of that as a parent. I think it's always. You know, you always have to put your kids first. And I think it's probably took a while to flip that. And I think it's you actually can't do that unless you are looking after yourself first, in terms of a lot of those things that you mentioned.

Um, and it actually then puts you in a better position to be better with the kid and better with your friends and better with key relationships. Um, can we talk about sleep? Because I think it's, um, I think I attended that session because that actually is something that I probably for the first, uh, given my age away here, but probably first, you know, 35 years of my life, I was kind of proudly was a, you know, four or five hours sleep.

Um, per night and kind of, you know, we'll sleep when we're dead and it's a waste of time and all those, it was like a badge

Dr. Jemma King: of honor, wasn't it? It was like, I've only had three hours of sleep, maybe,

James Lawrence: maybe I had, I kind of, that was always my perspective on it and probably the last five, six years, I put a lot of effort into it and it's, um, but yeah, can we talk about it?

Because I think the, The science that we, that you went through, um, at South by Southwest and, um, and also just also practical advice and tips and how it does set you up for the next day, right?

Dr. Jemma King: You're actually after South by Southwest. I had a, um, someone come up to me and say, can you please write a book?

So I've got a book deal on sleep. So I'm in the midst of, of, um, writing that now. And my God, like people, uh, just having a, like I did having this absolute epiphany. That, wow, all I need to do is that, and my whole perspective on life changes. I mean, so there isn't a system in your body that isn't affected by sleep deprivation.

And you can tell someone's biological age by how much they sleep. You know, all of us, whether we like it or not, um, if you live in the hill tribes of Papua New Guinea, or if you are from Sweden, or if you're from, you know, Midwest or Melbourne or wherever, you know, humans need, on average, 7. 8. Five hours of sleep.

There are outliers. So there are people who have a very, very lucky people who have a gene called the deck to Jane. I think it's about four and 100, 000 people have this gene and they only need four hours sleep. There's no physiological decrements at all from them having that much sleep. And interestingly enough, there's A, uh, overrepresentation of these people who are in politics, who are in startups, entrepreneurs, CEOs, uh, generals, because while all of us are slumbering, they're up reading and getting ahead of the, of the curve and just getting, you know.

James Lawrence: Wasn't Winston Churchill one, I think?

Dr. Jemma King: Yeah, yeah, yeah, he's definitely was one of those lucky people. And, um, you know, you might find there's other people in your family that didn't need much sleep. I, I'm, I'm sort of about a six hour person. I don't really need. Um, seven and a half. I can function pretty well on no sleep.

But if you're starting to get up to nine hours, ten hours, that, there could be something wrong as well. You really, there's a strong correlation between a lot of, um, like mental health disruption, uh, dementia, other metabolic disorders, as if you're sleeping, you know, a lot of hours. The exception is, elite athletes.

So there's a correlation between, um, sleep and, uh, success. And I always ask, do you know what the greatest number one predictor of athletic success or team athletic success is? Do you know what, what that is? The greatest predictor. It's injury prevention.

James Lawrence: Yeah. What is it? It's, uh, availability is the best ability.

Dr. Jemma King: Yeah. So if you, and if you're more available and you're not injured, you've got a greater propensity to win. And the greatest predictor of injury prevention is sleep, actually deep, slow wave sleep. So yeah, if you want to perform at a high level, particularly. Athletically, um, or any type of sport, you have to get sleep because, you know, there are certain really important parts of your sleep architecture that, uh, coded for, uh, cellular, muscular, bone regeneration repair.

And if you don't get that, which is the deep, slow wave sleep, and most of your deep, slow wave sleep is in the two hours before midnight. So if you're not getting that, those, that big chunk of replenishing sleep, it's very hard for you to, um, replenish, repair, and therefore be available. Yeah, there's a old wives tale, every hour before midnight is worth two after, so.

James Lawrence: I've never heard that. Every night, every hour before, yeah, interesting. And then it probably would be supported a little bit by science, is that right? Absolutely, yes. So

Dr. Jemma King: that's why shift work is so dangerous, is because if you're not getting that, you know, that replenishing sleep. before midnight. It's very, very hard to get it back.

You have to train very hard. You have to have your house set up. You have to have your life set up. And that's why, um, they're looking at making shift worker class to carcinogen because the correlation with sleep. Disruption through shift work and cancer, metabolic disorder, even divorce, uh, miscarriage, a whole lot of things is really strong.

People who, uh, engage in shift work. live on average 15 years less than non shift workers. And so here's a question for your listeners. If you in the last, okay, so if there's 25 days in a year where you sleep, um, if you're awake between the hours of 10 and 4 a. m. But at least two hours, you are considered a shift worker.

So that's a, that's a, that's a lot of people.

James Lawrence: So t 25 days a year, between 10:00 PM to 4:00 AM that you are awake for two hours of, um,

Dr. Jemma King: four times a week. Four,

James Lawrence: Sorry, four times a week. Yeah. Okay.

Dr. Jemma King: So that's probably like a lot of people. Yeah. It's like, and then, and then what? They're not shift working.

They're on Netflix, they're on their phones at night. They're, yeah. There, you know, so many kids are up to 1 a. m. on a regular basis, 2 a. m.

James Lawrence: It's terrifying. And what about that connection with under sleeping and then your ability to turn up the next day in the office and make good decisions and work with your team?

Because the kind of, um, the, the conversation at South by Southwest kind of steered in, like, obviously you had Shana Jack there as an Olympian, and it's kind of a different purpose, right, to being a white collar worker going into the office. But I think there's so many of those, um. benefits or drawbacks, right?

Depending on whether you're getting that amount of sleep or not. Um, maybe talk a little bit about that. Yeah,

Dr. Jemma King: it is like they're so most people who I see who have mental health disruption also have a sleep disorder. So the direction of causality is really hard to untease. Are they mentally disrupted because they're not sleeping or they're not sleeping because they're mentally disrupted?

And I, I actually believe a lot of it is that if you're not sleeping properly, you are. You, you do have mental health disruption and there's a mechanism is that throughout the day when you use your brain, your brain uses energy and it's through this mechanism where adenosine, triphosphate or ATP makes a little explosion in your head and you know, the bond goes off and that breaking of the bond is what gives your brain the energy that it needs to think, you know, look, speak, reminisce, remember, uh, Uh, and so as you build up, um, the energy usage throughout the day, the byproduct of that explosion is a thing called adenosine.

So this is a product molecule that builds up in your brain throughout the day and it's kind of like mother nature's dimmer switch. So when you get this build up, it's like, okay, you've been thinking you've been using your brain too long. It's time to slow down. And we know that that. product, adenosine, actually gives you this impending sense of doom.

We know this because adenosine is also used as heart medication for tachycardia. And so when the doctor has to administer is in, you know, they'll often take the patient's hand and say, don't worry, you are not going to die. It's just the, this medication. So people think it's like overwhelming, like the world is about to end.

And there's only one way to get rid of that adenosine. And that is through deep slow wave sleep. It kind of flushes your brain out. So throughout the night, you get these pulsatile movements of, of, um, cerebral spinal fluid that sort of flushes, like, you know, like these tubes and cells and it's kind of like pushes out all of the byproducts and the buildup.

It's all to get the gunk. It's kind of like gurning or street sweeping

James Lawrence: your brain.

Dr. Jemma King: Yeah. And so if you get to work in the morning and you haven't done that, you haven't cleaned your brain out, you will come into the office. You'll feel overwhelmed. You'll be looking for problems. You'll feel like You don't have the resources for the day.

You'll be irritable. You will be reactive. You'll be suspicious. You'll be anxious. And that is in no, that's no state to be making really good decisions, being creative, being open, collaborative, having psychological safety in your team and I know there's a, I was working with a, um, one of the bosses from a big global manufacturing organization and he says he wakes up in the morning and he looks at his web device and if he is in the red, meaning he hasn't had enough sleep, he won't.

conversations, he won't have meetings, which critical decisions have to be made because he knows he's in the wrong headspace. And that's why I love measuring sleep is because we might think that we've had a great sleep and we'd wake up and we've actually missed out that significant part of our sleep architecture.

And we think, you know, we like to post rationalize. We like, I feel like crap. It's probably I hate my job. It's probably I hate my boss, my partner, my team, but actually you've just got a brain full of adenosine and you feel like crap and you're making it about everything else when you just need a really good hearty sleep.

James Lawrence: It's fascinating, isn't it? And it's just like, the body is wild and it is amazing that Kind of makes sense, right? We would have this almost self protective mechanism to kind of slow the brain down, right? But at the end of the day, it's like, you can't keep going. You need, we need some device to, to kind of, um, to protect you, right?

So you don't kind of, uh, overheat or, you know, whatever, whatever, um, isn't and you mentioned with, like, I'm aware of work and I think it probably may be cause and effect. I'm not sure which, but getting the work device, right. It is interesting, like I would go to bed at 10, wake up at 6 and go, I've had 8 hours sleep, you get the WIP device and you kind of realize, hang on, that's actually not true.

And some days it is true, but some, you know, WIP will measure how long it takes to get to sleep. It gives you the breakdowns, right, of light sleep and, um, SWS, that you've mentioned. Yes, light sleep,

Dr. Jemma King: yep. And

James Lawrence: it kind of categorizes certain parts into deep sleep and it gamifies it. And I think that which doesn't get measured doesn't get done right.

And actually starting to, so now it is a matter of, um, yeah, like it, often you've got to be in bed for eight and a half hours to get, you know, seven hours and 45, or, I mean, that's been so fascinating, the idea of not making, and for those that wear Woop, they'll kind of know what I read. And a reading is and what a amber and green, but the idea of not making.

big decisions, just even the idea of putting yourself into the mentality of, okay, I'm not actually going to perform very well today. That's okay. At least I'm aware of it as opposed to just being foggy and grumpy all day. You know,

Dr. Jemma King: there is, I mean, like for elite athletes and for people who have no choice, I have to perform.

I do train on the the importance of not getting, uh, not conflating sleep deprivation with sleep deprivation, anxiety and giving themselves a double whammy. So I know that negative mental rumination is extremely metabolically expensive. So if you wake up like, so there's a lot of athletes that don't like looking at their metrics because they get so like frothed up about it and they get worried about it where, okay, you have to understand that if you have one night of bad sleep, that if you're a fit and relatively healthy, adult, you're going to be totally fine.

You not having sleep and overlaying sleep deprivation, anxiety on top of that is like, you know, conflating will actually create more negative outcomes. And if you just go, you know what? I feel actually pretty good. And you look for evidence that you feel very good. And so You have to be very careful. I mean, sleep deprivation, second night, third night, then you're running into significant trouble.

And you will not be making decisions. You'll be reactive. Your risk taking profile will change dramatically. Uh, there is, there is decrements. But one night, you've got to understand you're going to be fine. You don't just don't get anxious or worried about it, but yeah, just on the work thing, I really think if you don't measure it, you can't move it.

And yeah, if you are okay with looking at your data, you do have that sort of mental discipline and then you feel like they've got agency over your life. I think it's a really good idea to measure it and like, you know, I can. where we've all the time. I think that once you realize that what are the things that really wrong, you said, well, the foods, one of the activities, um, the modalities, you know, alcohol, like you can, you can get this sort of boundary limitations framework.

You go, okay, I'm okay if I have two glasses of wine fairly early in the night and I don't eat meat at night. I have my protein at that time. Or if I do this massage or I meditate and you can kind of work out your full formula. like in a very scientific manner and do a little mini experiments on yourself.

Once you work that out, you know, I don't, you don't need to have it on all the time. I think

James Lawrence: you really do like as a sample of one. I think it probably has been the biggest thing that has had me cut back booze or not all booze, but just that you sleep so badly and it's not even drinking a lot. You might drink like three or four glasses of wine or whatever on the night and it just scurries to sleep and one or two and it's Maybe you're okay.

And obviously none's better than some, but it's, um, I think just you're having the numbers. It's not just this kind of subjective feeling anymore. It's like, no, actually, if I, you know, if I'm drinking on a weeknight, it will mean I wake up feeling pretty bad. Well, the numbers will say that I'm pretty bad.

Dr. Jemma King: Yeah, and often like you can see, you have your heart rate variability changes for up to three days. Yeah, I mean, I'm very sad about it because I. You know, I do love red wine. So I've been trialing out, uh, you know, Merkel, which is that prebiotic from that sort of metabolizes the alcohol before you get absorbed.

That actually does work. There's another one I think has come out in Australia. I can't remember the name of it, but, you know, they've really been pumping it on social media. So I think, yeah, I mean, we live in a culture where alcohol is very prevalent. It's part of our culture. So, yeah. You know, I think you need to work around it, but really understand alcohol is incredibly detrimental to your performance and sleep.

James Lawrence: 100%. Um,

Dr. Jemma King: what

James Lawrence: other, what advice would you give on, I think like most of us like, you know, don't sit there on your big glaring screen before you're trying to get to sleep. Like what other, I think measuring it is awesome, trying to cut back on booze where possible. Other bits of advice around how to get better sleep going.

Dr. Jemma King: Yeah. So, I mean, you've got to understand, you've got to give yourself a framework as to why you want to do it. Like you have to have, you know, experiment and gone, wow, I got into bed at 930 and then, and like sort of take note of how well you performed the next day. So you give yourself like that psychological reward there.

I know this is important to me. So you just have to, if you, if you're not disciplined yourself, you've got to look at what is keeping you up at night. And Often it's like your phone or Netflix or, you know, just. You know, I'm sitting on a couch and just going, you know, often do another dimension watching, you know, a movie.

And so when I, when I was doing my PhD, I, I, I was, it was so stressful, but that was the only time I really sort of got into watching Netflix and I'd be like, it'd be one o'clock in the morning. I'd be like, Oh, it's like a junkie. One more, one more episode, one more episode before you knew. I'm like, Oh my God, I've had to get up and teach lecture at eight in the morning.

And so I created this way to. create discipline in my life when I didn't have it. And so I got one of those plugs from Ikea that has the timer in it. And so I plugged in my modem into that timer and I set the timer to go off automatically at nine 30. So, you know, these, these, um, These streamers, they know exactly how to hit your dopamine system.

So they'll, the last part of what you see in a show will be a cliffhanger and it'll just roll straight onto the next episode. So you kind of like, unless you're super disciplined, it'll, before you know it, you're you're into the next episode. So I knew that. So I'll be sitting on the couch and, uh, all of a sudden.

The power would go off my modem. And so my, um, my show would stop and I'd be like, Oh, damn it. But what I did was I put the modem right up in a cupboard right far away behind all these cords. And in order for me to get up to that cupboard, I used to have to drag a little step ladder and actually kept the step ladder in another room.

So for me to get up and turn the Netflix back on, there was. These multiple steps. And by the time I got dragged, this thing sort of stood up and tried to turn the motor back on, my adult brain would kick in and say, stop it, go to sleep. I would, you know, I would really recommend putting these. Steps in, if you can't be disciplined and just until you train yourself and, you know, keep things out of, out of mind, out of sight, uh, my phone turns to a dark, uh, black and white gray at a certain time so that it doesn't look so interesting.

Keep my phone somewhere else. I dropped the lights in my house. So I've got only warm lights, nothing overhead, because if you get overhead light hitting the bottom of your retinal cells, you know, after 10 o'clock, it does send a message to your head, Benley, Benila, then to your pancreas and the next day you'll be more hungry for salty, sugary foods and you'll be slightly proaggressive because basically your primitive brains thinking, okay, what are you doing out of the cave late at night?

There's only two reasons that humans really would stay up at night. Uh, you know, out of the cave and that'd be hunt will be hunted and those require stress hormones. So if you're getting light from above, your brain will start to produce stress hormones, which completely ruin your sleep. So trying to minimize all of the excitatory, uh, information coming into your eyeballs, light sounds, noise.

Uh, in the lead up to bed, we know that if you are a little insomniac, a 40 degree centigrade hot bath, once two hours before bed, kind of intuitively will help your, you drop your core body temperature by two degrees. So in order for you to get into deep slow wave sleep, your body core body temperature needs to get down by two degrees.

And so if you kind of truly heat up your body. You'll drop quicker. So it's sort of vasodilating and it does make you sleepy. So yeah, that's a, that's a meta analysis. So there's all those things that you should avoid sugar before bed. Um, woop data says that if you eat sugary foods in the, um, before bed, you're going to sleep on average 26 minutes less because it's kind of like putting fuel in the fire furnace.

You are like increasing your metabolic churn, your resting heart rate goes up and your gut biome gets activated. So Don't eat sugar before bed. Don't have the ice cream. Don't have those chocolate or whatever nuts that which has tryptophan in it. Which is a precursor to melatonin, which is the sleep hormone.

So, I mean, there's, there's heaps of things you can do. Don't play, um, games. Don't play any fighting games, um, computer games. Yeah. Watch what you're putting into your eyeballs. Is it excitatory? Is it, does it make you angry? Does it make you sad? Yeah. Be careful. Read a book.

James Lawrence: It's, um, Awesome stuff. I mean, if you hadn't already said it, I was going to say you need to write a book on this topic.

Yeah. It's um, it's great. After sleep, like what, what's the next big lever like around stress? What, what are the, what are the things, like, what do you say?

Dr. Jemma King: Um, so once you've got your sleep sorted, you can really control like mental rumination, it's directions of your thoughts. It's not like your thoughts are thinking you, but, uh, I don't know which one's first depending on you, but I think diet and exercise are almost, you know, head to head.

And I think that I, I see. you know, wellness and flourishing as a formulated approach. So there will be sleep is the primary lever. Then there'll be exercise and diet. Then there'll be, you know, relationships, um, and, and your environment, like your significant other and the environment that you live in. And then there's work.

And, um, finances and at any one time, none of those levers are going to be on green, right? You're going to have to manage them according to the context of what is happening in your life. And so you can't get really strung out about not always eating really well or not. Always exercising enough or not seeing your friends or enough because these are as we're adults It's really hard to have all of them on green.

There are people who do it, but they're often like super neurotic and annoying. And those people and the stress that they generate, I've got to be in bed now. I've got, I can't eat that. No, I can't talk to you or, you know, I need to run 10 days before lunch. Like the stress that that causes, I think, can counter, um, you know, how to interact with All the good that you're doing.

So you've really got to, anytime you feel cortisol, anytime you feel adrenaline because you're not reaching your diet, exercise or sleep goals, just know that that cortisol is probably much worse. And so every time you

James Lawrence: unpack that again. If it's cortisol B, is that a,

Dr. Jemma King: is that the stress hormone, the primary stress hormone?

So I think always try to have sleep consistency. So you better run the same time. Um, if you, if you're going to do anything, go for that one. If you, um, then diet and exercise become, you know, head to head. I really think you should, you should move your body. You really need to be, you know, getting inside your muscles, your long skeletal muscles.

Um, anytime you pull or like have movement in those skeletal muscles, you produce proteins called myokines. Now these are anti anxiety, anti depressive proteins that make you feel amazing. It's mother nature's reward for running, moving. And so. I really str even if you're at work, get like a hand grip, do dips while you're standing there, lift your ankles, like do calf raises.

So I think movement, um, of your body also helps your lymphatic system, you know, push fluids through. Just any type of movement. Um, and then diet, I, I, for me, I don't have anything packaged. I don't eat sugar and I don't eat wheat. Um, my bad, the naughty thing I do is red wine. But apart from that, I really, well, I don't have anything with MSG, food colorings, flavorings.

I really like, if it's more than two degrees from its natural form, I typically don't eat it. What

James Lawrence: advice do you give to people? Because this is, I suspect this has been a lifelong pursuit for you, or decades of like, One person is right to get to this point and I suspect that listeners will be there'll be a spectrum, right?

There'll be some who as disciplined as you got it all going There's gonna be some of probably halfway on that journey But what about like if you're at the other end of the spectrum and it's it's Macca's it's fast food It's not enough to yourself. It's booze and drugs and like What are the what are the ways to try to move yourself in the?

The right direction, but also doing it in a way that you're setting yourself up to succeed and not just

Dr. Jemma King: well, I'm not like discipline, right? I mean, like, I had a massive weekend. I don't know, like, how to how to get back. So I, I always say, like, do the good things most of the day. So then you can do bad things.

Yeah, I'm all about like, I love having fun. I love going out. I love having, you know, blow out on the weekend, but I, I know exactly what I need to do to get back on track. And I don't feel guilty about it. Like rumination and guilt is really bad, but like, if you are, you are like really down the other end of the spectrum and you're not doing anything right.

Uh, first, I mean, just get your sleep right for a start. Just, just do that one thing. And if you can't get your sleep, right. Get sleep consistency. So that means trying to get to bed at the same time every night. And so what that, then you, what you find is every, a lot of other stuff just falls into place because you've got the, the bandwidth to think about eating better or exercising.

So if you can't get to bed early, at least go to bed at the same time every night, like even if it's late, just have one consistent thing in your life. And then I think that when people are. trying to anesthetize themselves with alcohol, drugs, food, what they're trying to do is like, they're trying to, um, yeah, as I said, anesthetize from a feeling, right?

There's some emotion that they don't want to feel. And so before you go to the fridge, like, and you mindlessly like saying that, and before you know it, you just ram something into your face. Just try and think, what was I thinking right before that moment? Or before you go to get a cigarette? Or before you go to like, reach for a drink?

or you, you know, you plan a big night, you know, you're going to go out and get on it. You think like, what, what was I just thinking? And you will find that there'll be a persistent emotion that you're avoiding. And I think then once you just go, Oh, you know what, what sends me to the fridge, you know, it sends me to the bottle is that thing.

And then, then you need to go and get some professional help when they're all, there's so many books, there's so many podcasts, even get on chat GPT and say, I have a food addiction or I have this addiction. And I, I just realized the thought that made me want to. is this thought? What do you think I should do?

And chat GPT, even the free version is excellent at being your personal psych.

James Lawrence: Will it generally be a consistent emotion that's driving that impulse or that desire or will it jump around?

Dr. Jemma King: Um, well it could jump around, but like at the basis of it, it's, it's probably the same thing. It's fear, fear of not being loved, fear of not being accepted, humiliation, embarrassment.

So it's a, It's a, some emotion that makes you feel separate from others or separate from your, from your real self

James Lawrence: and a negative emotion, obviously, right?

Dr. Jemma King: And it could be, it could be dressed up as, um, I'm overweight. I am unlovable. Um, I can't get a promotion. I'm not earning much money, but when you, when you peel the onion back and you ask why, why, why do you feel like that?

There usually is a kernel and it's probably something that might have started in your childhood. Um, something from your parents, but yeah, I think that a life left unexplored is a life not worth living. And as you get older, you think, my God, I'm so sick of being sick of being sick of myself. Like surely I've got to work my shit out by now.

And I think that unless you endeavor into uncovering what's driving these bad behaviors, why do I keep doing the same dumb stuff over again? And you really are sick of that person that does that. Um, it's really hard. To ever be successful and ever be like truly happy and have really good relationships and be a good parent.

Like I've spent a lot of time like investigating, like, why was I like that? Why did I do those things?

James Lawrence: It's fascinating to kind of get into the, the crux of that, that kernel, as you described it

Dr. Jemma King: in theory

James Lawrence: and resolve that. And then these other things, these impulses dissipate and

Dr. Jemma King: it's never about the drugs.

It's never about the food. It's never about the gambling. It's never about those impulses. That's just. The behavior that comes out of avoidance of a deeper emotion. So when people will go, Oh, you're an alcoholic, you need to go and, you know, go to a facility where you don't drink. Okay, you might stop drinking, but you probably take up taking some other unhelpful dopamine eliciting behavior.

Like it's never about the thing you're doing. It's always about the deeper emotion.

James Lawrence: It's fascinating. The thing is not the thing.

Dr. Jemma King: No, it's not the drugs. It's not the alcohol. It's not the booze. It's not the food. And I think people get caught up in that.

James Lawrence: It's yeah, it's fascinating. Um, I kind of stress, burnout, sleep.

It's fascinating stuff, right? And I think it like marketers or no market is this. I think all of us can take something into our life with that. I'd like to just move into, um, decision making and decision making pressure. And, um, and I think probably a lot of it is intrinsically linked to what we've just spoken about sleep and being ready to go and having a clear mind.

But, um, maybe if you could just talk a little bit about what you work with your clients on in terms of good decision making and, um, and how that kind of comes to be.

Dr. Jemma King: I know that, um, when people are under pressure and stress, they often revert back into primitive processes, or they, they'll see themselves doing, behaving in ways that, like, their parents would speak to them, or, and so I, I didn't, I didn't want to be like that.

Like, I'm different. And I know that, you know, people listening may have sat through, you know, thousands of hours and hundreds of thousands of dollars of professional, personal development, but in those moments, When you need to show up, when the pressure is on, when there's critical times and you need to make a decision, all of those high order concepts that you have been taught, those five point strategies, all that, blah, blah, blah, it just goes, you forget about it.

Like, what was that thing? And you actually end up reverting to quite primitive processes. So that's why I always go lead yourself, understand your physiology and you need to engage in stress inoculation. You need to practice making decisions under pressure on less critical circumstances. constructs before you do the big things because you want to know how you act under pressure.

And that's why I engage a lot in stress inoculation training, like putting people in intense, I would sleep deprived people. I would shock them. I would, um, physically like make them uncomfortable just so when they that, you know, they knew, okay, I act like this under pressure.

James Lawrence: I like how you're laughing as you say that.

That's for, for listeners. It's, uh, Gemma's laughing at that. It

Dr. Jemma King: did involve some electric shocks and tasers and, you know, awful things. But, uh, it, it's really good. But also know that there are many factors which, uh, will feed into how you, um, make decisions under pressure. It's like, um, there's genetics, epigenetics.

your proclivity for risk. Um, you know, what you were exposed to in your intrauterine environment, in your mother's stomach, if she was stressed out, you have a different stress tolerance. Um, you might be a little more reactive. You might be a little more, um, you know, notice negativity, or you might be like sort of geared towards bad things happening.

Um, even your own, how much you've slept really does change your, decision making, even your blood glucose levels. So we know that if you have a blood glucose that goes up and then it goes down. So if you're eating lots of sugar and then you have to make a decision and your blood glucose level goes, has a dip because your insulin is going to pull it out of your bloodstream because your body doesn't like high levels of glucose in the system.

And that deep of sugar actually will make you have a different decision making outcome than if you had a stable blood glucose. But in fact, there's this really interesting study where they got people to They gave them voodoo dolls, um, 300 couples and they gave them voodoo dolls and pins. And then they put those continuous glucose monitors on their arm.

And they said, every time your partner pisses you off, put a pin into that voodoo doll. And so you could imagine at the end of six weeks, they sent these voodoo dolls back in and their work. pins everywhere. And then they looked at their blood glucose levels and then it correlated the more dips they had, the more pins they had.

So your, what you eat actually determines how pissed off you are, or like how good you are at making rational decisions. So that's a big thing. But also, um, you need to really get educated like and always before you make a decision, look at the other side. Don't always assume that you have, you know, enough information that you are right.

Always test your assumptions. Always say, like, have a dissenting, um, you know, little angel on your shoulder and the devil on your shoulder and go, if I was to argue against myself, what would I do? And use chat GPT or whatever, um, platform you use, but argue against yourself. That's what I always say about decision making.

James Lawrence: It's fascinating. Yeah, I think the chat GPT bit is really, like, I think it was really interesting given, um, all of your background and all of your experience still leaning into chat GPT, you know, for that, you know, for that kind of, uh, kind of actual, I guess, you know, psychological health, but that has that kind of.

Chatbot, Sanity Check, and firmly in our space, right, ChatGPT, technology, marketing, like we have always gone to Google to find the answers to problems that we have and to look for service providers and, um, for self help. And ChatGPT is incredible. And yeah, I personally use it.

Dr. Jemma King: I've got like six on the, I've got six that I pay for.

Um, you know, I've got all of them and I'm constantly testing them every day to see which one's better for which. Uh, functionality and like it changes every day. And so I think you've just got to be on top. In fact, I did a keynote like what, what do we need in a, in a world that's going to be AI driven.

And, you know, I've been studying this for over a year now and I think emotional intelligence. is the one skill that we should be trying to hire for, foster, maintain, and um, and grow in our workforce, in ourselves. Because when the marginal cost of IQ is coming to zero, like you can get someone who's beyond PhD level, over 400, you know, equivalent IQ at your fingertips for almost nothing.

Like what, what are we, where are we left? Like what's left to do and is nothing but human. And what are those human factors? It's emotional intelligence, the ability to understand, perceive, use emotional information and data to create teams and create psychological safety. Be, you know, understand the human condition.

I mean, I was getting very, very good at it. But if I was going to do anything, I would teach my kids emotional intelligence.

James Lawrence: And how do you do it? Like if you're working in with a client and it's a complex team and you've got politics and all those things going on, like, what are those? Um, what are the pillars that you try to lean on in terms of emotional intelligence?

And I think some people it's more innate to some than others, right? Like, how do you try to foster that and encourage it to grow?

Dr. Jemma King: We just understand it's a thing. And that the most successful people, though obviously they have high IQs, but they also have the combination of high IQ and high emotional intelligence.

So for those that don't know what it is, so I did my PhD and it was one of the factors. Emotional intelligence is the ability to a, perceive emotions in others. So that's microexpressions, understanding someone's lying, um, understanding their body language, their vocal intonation. Just like being able to look and see someone and go, Oh, okay.

There's something going on in there. Um, and then also, um, emotional perception of yourself. So understanding like when you can start, for your heart racing, when you feel like your emotional landscape is starting to shift within yourself and knowing that that's, that's happening. The second is then understanding why.

Why would I have this emotion, understanding that emotions transmute, blend, and they then turn into something else. So you can have two seemingly opposing emotions exist in the same person at the same time. So you can have, um, you can be sad or happy at the same time. So that would be, you know, um, I am reminiscing about my wonderful time.

I went to the beach with my grandmother, but she's dead. And that comes through. becomes melancholy and understand that there's a complexity in emotions and that you can almost read the future. If you know that person's got that emotion, then that happened. Well, they're probably going to end up there. So it's almost like crystal ball reading, incredibly important.

Then there's using emotional data to make decisions. So. Um, when you've got AI, it can give you like, Oh, this is probably what's going to happen. But then if you add in the emotional data to a situation, you go, well, it's probably going to end up like this because you've, you understand, and then you're using those to, um, to make decisions.

And then the most important. emotional intelligence. And I think if you're going to be successful, if you want your Children to be successful, if you want your team to be successful, this is the most important skill that you have to foster. And that is emotional regulation, emotional regulation of yourself, knowing how to downregulate yourself or upregulate yourself in those critical moments, but also being able to regulate your team.

Your team's flat. They're tired, but you've got to get this stuff done. How do you bring them up bouncing around? Everyone's being silly and you've got some high attention to detail tasks to do. How do you bring them down? This is the most critical skill out of anything running teams, leadership, parenting, being healthy, being disciplined.

Is regulating your own emotions because that's the thing that drives people. Emotions drive people. Data doesn't

James Lawrence: do you have? Um, because I think we could probably do a podcast. We do 10 podcasts on the topic of emotional regulation.

Dr. Jemma King: Yeah.

James Lawrence: Do you have any, um? I mean, maybe chat should be a good place to start, but do you have any, uh, kind of resources, books, podcasts, any advice for listeners that kind of go, hang on, that's a, that sounds like something that I need to spend some time on.

Dr. Jemma King: Um, I should know, but, uh, I mean, I've just read so many books and papers. I can't even pinpoint one.

James Lawrence: And I think also not deep scientific, you know what I mean? I think probably what the level we're at versus the level you're at could be two quite different things, you know.

Dr. Jemma King: If you look at, I'm Diary of a CEO, Mark Brackett, he's from Yale.

So he's really famous around emotional intelligence and he does a lot of stuff at schools. So yeah, Diary of a CEO, Mark Brackett, Dr. Mark Brackett. Um, so Daniel Goldman was kind of like the guy who brought. I, uh, to the public, his book, um, good for you. Google emotional intelligence. And then actually like there's people talking at Google, they, they love emotional intelligence so much.

Yeah. I think what you've got to do is look at your context. So I'm in marketing. Why would emotional intelligence be good for me? Get onto Herplexity. That's also an AI, um, platform. It's really good for search. Go, you know, what should I be reading? It'll come up with amazing, um, resources, but yeah, I can't, sorry, I can't think of one,

James Lawrence: but that's great.

No, I think that's honestly, that's those two. There's two books, the Google, uh, YouTube stuff. I think it's, it's, um, because it is hard. We've only got an hour together and there's a limit to how deep that we can go. Um, but I do think that kind of self awareness, right? Like, I am feeling like this, therefore it will have this impact on those people and I think how you carry yourself through a day.

Whether positively or negatively impacts everyone around you, right?

Dr. Jemma King: Well, there's the chemo signaling phenomenon. So when you are having an emotion, you'll be out letting off like, like tiny droplets of pheromones or stress hormones or certain combinations of molecules that actually will change the emotional status of those around you.

So for instance, when you are stressed out and you produce cortisol, it is super infectious and it will, um, change the, uh, neural processing in your team. You get activation in the medulla or the fear center. So you have to be very, very cognizant of the emotional state that you're in. And if you want to walk into a room and have effect, people will catch your emotions, um, through emotional contagion, um, through chemo signaling.

It's very potent.

James Lawrence: It's really, really interesting. We, we finish every episode of the pod with the, with the one question. What's that one piece of advice that you'd give to an in house marketer?

Um, so I'd love to hear what you're thinking.

Dr. Jemma King: So if you want to get people to listen to you. Uh, and I have actually had behavioral change. Um, you have to move them through emotion. Data doesn't move people. Emotions move people. And so I've worked out, I've got a list of five constructs that if you are going to give an audience a message, try and make sure they fit into one of these five categories because these five categories have been shown to move emotion the most.

So either it's the five S's. Survival. So what you're selling, telling, Or, um, sharing either has to hit something that has to do with their survival, safety, medical, um, yeah, fear, um, people that give their attention to subjects which, uh, impede or help their chances of survival. So that It taps into that primitive brain.

Then there is the element of surprise. So pattern interrupt. So if there's something that is, um, unexpected, we'll catch people's attention. So something out of the ordinary that doesn't fit into their mental models of the world or what you're, what you're typically saying, and there's sustenance. So something that's going to feed them, give them sustenance and money goes into that.

So does that thing that you're talking about actually increase their ability to grow? Um, and including money, there's the age of one sex, you know, that's what if you think about, there's the, um, cocktail party phenomenon, there's only two things that will break through and noisy cocktail party noise if you're standing there talking, and if you hear one, your name called.

It'll break through the noise and you'll go, Oh, someone call my name. Or if someone mentioned sex, it'll break through the cocktail party noise phenomenon. So is

James Lawrence: that actually true? Those two things, things,

Dr. Jemma King: your name and sex, anything that helps you get more look sexier. Um, any advice around that? Um, which you've got to be careful these days and then status.

Anything that you are talking about will improve. Someone's status or, um, reduce the threat to their status. So, survival, surprise, sustenance, sex and status. They're my five tips. So, make sure that your message goes within those one or, you know, couple of them.

James Lawrence: That's brilliant. I think that's, um, practical takeaways for the Rocket team.

I'm going to feed that straight back to our, uh, to the marketing team to be working on.

Dr. Jemma King: Like, then you go, is my message have anything to do with those things? You're like, yeah, it does. It hits a couple of them, even better.

James Lawrence: All five. That's a challenge for the team to come up with something that hits all five of them.

Dr. Jemma King: Yeah, that'd be a weird, um, yeah, marketing campaign

James Lawrence: cocktail party. I think, um, yeah, thanks so much for coming onto the pod. That was. It's awesome. Um, it was, I don't know, I enjoyed the session at South by South so much, South by Southwest so much. And I feel, um, gone even past that in this one. So it's awesome.

So thank you for your time.

Dr. Jemma King: Yeah. Thank you for having me.

James Lawrence: I hope everyone enjoyed the pod.

Dr. Jemma King: Yeah. Thank you.

James Lawrence: Thank you.