The Talent Forge: Shaping Workforce Behaviors with Jay Johnson

How Naming Your Feelings Can Transform Tough Conversations with Yancy Wright

• Jay Johnson • Season 2 • Episode 3

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Burnout isn’t the villain; it’s the flashing dashboard light you can’t afford to ignore. We sit down with leadership guide Yancy Wright to explore how the body signals trouble long before the mind admits it—and how tuning into those signals can shift your work, your relationships, and your impact. From chronic jaw tension and low enthusiasm to that heavy, pulled-down feeling, we map the early cues of overload and connect them to the real drivers: loss of meaning, resentment, and isolation.

Yancy opens the door to somatic coaching—the practice of leading from body intelligence, not just intellect. He breaks down “unarguable truths” you can use when conversations get tense, like naming tightness in your chest or grip in your jaw, and shows why that honesty lowers defenses and restores presence. We share a clear three-step script for difficult talks, plus a quick method to build decision confidence by sensing fast yes/no responses before analysis kicks in. Along the way, we examine how fear often masquerades as anger, why leaders loop attention outward and burn out, and how to re-center so you respond instead of react.

If you’ve ever felt the pit in your stomach before a meeting or the clench in your jaw during feedback, this conversation gives you the tools to turn signals into guidance.

Learn more: https://www.casaalternavida.com/

Connect with Yancy: https://www.yancywright.com/

Meet the Host
Jay Johnson works with people and organizations to empower teams, grow profits, and elevate leadership. He is a Co-Founder of Behavioral Elements®, a two-time TEDx speaker, and a designated Master Trainer by the Association for Talent Development. With a focus on behavioral intelligence, Jay has delivered transformational workshops to accelerate high-performance teams and cultures in more than 30 countries across four continents. For inquiries, contact jay@behavioralelements.com or connect below!

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jayjohnsonccg/
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/jayjohnsonccg/
Speaker Website - https://jayjohnsonspeaks.com

Jay Johnson:

Welcome to this episode of the Talent Forge, where together we are shaping workforce behaviors. I can't express how excited I am to talk to our guest today, Yancy Wright. One of the things, and just in the research and learning about this, this is going to be a very unique episode because it's one that we have not covered, a number of these different topics. And I just want to say, welcome to the show, Yancy, and thank you for being here. Thank you, Jay. It's really fun to be here as well. So before we get into some of these really amazing topics that I know that are just going to be fascinating to the audience, I would love to understand you a little bit better. How did you get into this space? How did you get into like talent development, workforce behaviors? What got you here?

Yancy Wright:

Well, Jay, that's a great question. Um, actually, I think, you know, I did a lot of workforce development in the green building industry in my past life. I call it a past life because it feels like it, it's probably something like that. Uh, I was in Seattle for about 12 years. I was a leader in the green building industry. And what I recognize is I was on the forefront of a big movement that was happening where buildings were being built in a much different way. So I saw an opportunity to develop some of the first in the in the country green building training curriculum for contractors and then also for the safety professionals. And it just started to expand from there. And I ended up getting quite a bit of um uh projects supporting workforce development to help prepare all this workforce because I we we worked for uh I was an owner in a big company there that uh we provided most of the jobs for that green building industry. So it was beneficial for us to do that. And eventually I ended up having a career burnout. And I didn't realize I was burning until I was already burnt. I ended up in the hospital, had to have my heart shocked with the defibrillator a few times. I mean, we can laugh about it now. Luckily, I'm still here, but it was uh it was a wake-up call in the moment of like, whoa, how did I get here? And how, you know, was my passion that I was super passionate about my work, how was that driving me to work so many hours and not give myself rest? Um, so it's it's it's probably similar to you, where a lot of what I do now is is is like a way or pathway of learning how to undo unhealthy behaviors that we, you know, I studied architecture, and in the architectural profession, you just stay up late and you work all the time and it's an unhealthy culture. So there's so many ways that I've learned to do work in life different over the last 10 years, going through multiple coaching programs, that now it's like, all right, I want to teach and work with and support people like me that were stressed out, overwhelmed, have anxiety. It doesn't mean that I still don't get there periodically myself, but I've got tools to quickly reset in a different environment now to reset in.

Jay Johnson:

It's such a powerful story because one of the things I do a lot of work in the burnout space, and I I I've felt that people have always classified burnout wrong. It's almost like burnout's the enemy. Uh go take a bath and give yourself some chamomile tea, and you're gonna feel a lot better and you know, self-care, et cetera, which I yes is all important from a behavioral science standpoint. Audience, please hear me when I say this. Take care of yourself. It is important. But I think it misses some of the underlying aspects. Burnout's not the enemy, it's the early warning sign before something like hospitalization occurs. And what you said, I think was so powerful. It's like by the time that I realized I was burning, I was already burnt. And it's one of those where, and this is where I want to take us because it's part of the reason why I'm so fascinated by the work that you're doing. That early warning signal of burnout probably showed up for you. And I I would be willing to bet that if you recounted, looked back, you would have noticed places in your body, places in your mind, places in your performance, months, if not, you know, weeks before it came to a it came to a head. And I'm curious, in that reflection, what do you see? What was something that kind of stands out to you? Like if somebody right now is going through burnout, what would you want to tell them about some of these early warning signs?

Yancy Wright:

Yeah, that's a really good point because uh they were showing up for at least a couple years prior. And um, one of the things would be are you excited about your work? If you're not really excited about getting out of bed and going to work, that's that's one that's one factor. Another is um just feeling an overwhelmingly amount of heavy weight, just that your body just feels slow and it feels pulled, pulled down from gravity. Another would be just a pessimistic mindset. Like it was it was just hard for me to actually be optimistic. Uh, and I'm typically an optimistic person, but in that frame of mind, or it was putting basically the burnout wasn't because of the outside forces. Most people are in and in in that time period, I was blaming everyone else around me. But the reality after stepping away from it for a while, a couple of years, was like, oh wow, I created this. I created it with the pressure I was putting on myself. I created it with my own inner critic. And you're right, the signs were showing up. I had chronic TMJ, uh, a lot of challenges with my neck and back. And then I also was having some prostate issues for several years. Um, and those things all changed when I when I ended up shifting and leaving that career. It didn't mean that they didn't come back because I thought it would be better to go design and build a retreat center for people like me, but that became pretty stressful in the process. But now I do have a retreat center finished and work work with people regularly, but I don't have those issues anymore. Um so yes, definitely showed up as signs, and there was definitely uh a different depth of awareness that I had to face into or had the opportunity to face of like, how was I creating this experience? And um, what were the things that I could do to more quickly shift out of it when they pop up again?

Jay Johnson:

That that's super powerful, you know, and and I love what you said about like where people perceive their burnout comes from. One of the things, and we've done a ton of studies in the healthcare space, and typically it's not it, typically, it's not the amount of work, it's whether that work has meaning or it just feels like I'm spinning my wheels and just doing the same thing over and over. Is there a purpose behind the work? Is there resentment, i.e., I'm resenting my boss, I'm resenting the, I'm resenting the culture, I'm resenting why I'm always being singled out to do these extra things, et cetera. Or the third one is isolation, where they don't feel like they're part of the in-group. They don't feel like they're part of the tribe and they're being kind of shunned to the side. Those three things popped up consistently in patterns over and over and over again in burnout. And I mean, even if you think about this, like some of the comments that we got back on surveys from nurses was I have to wear a mask for 12 hours a day, and this person couldn't put one on for 15 minutes. Like those were the statements from people that were experiencing exceptionally high levels of burnout, as opposed to the people who weren't, was their statements were something along the lines of, I'm here to help educate these, you know, these individuals about how they're gonna be able to navigate these new scenarios. And and you're right. So that optimism piece, that resentment piece, I think it's so important. Now, I I wanna I wanna shift this, and and I'm gonna give a little context here because I've not actually said this on this show, Yancy. Um January 2nd, 2026. So we were talking a few weeks ago. I put a post on LinkedIn that was probably the scariest post I've ever put out there. And it was all about taking off my mask. Um, I am uh I'm neurodivergent, and I have uh we're gonna call it a lack of emotional fluency. In other words, I don't experience emotions in the same way that other people do. And part of my healing journey on that, so you know, when when somebody says, I feel guilty, usually like there's a feeling or a sense of feeling in there, and they say, I shouldn't have done that. I need to do something different. That doesn't really occur for me. And I've I've I've hid that part of me for so, so long. I've tried to adapt because I wanted to fit in. I finally released this mask, working with therapist and trying to better understand myself, and we got into somatics, i.e., how the body is reacting and showing up and responding. And and through that therapy, I have learned it's not that I don't have the emotions, they just don't show the same way. But my body communicates every single emotion, whether it's guilt, fear, anxiety, frustration, anger, joy, all of those things. I can now, I now have a map that I can see those. So this is something that I haven't shared on this show. I have shared it publicly as part of like my healing journey. When I saw that you do somatic coaching, I was so excited because I don't think a lot of people are even aware of the concept, let alone what to do with that or what that means. So could you maybe start us off with just an introduction? What is somatic coaching? What is somatics in general? How did you get into that space? Because I think this is a really, really powerful tool for overcoming burnout, as well as a number of other things that people could be experiencing.

Yancy Wright:

Yeah, thanks, Jay. I'll um I'll start, I'll back up just a little and just say the way that I like to define leadership is influence. And and it starts with self-leadership. How are you influencing yourself? And so in my case, I was I had a very strong inner critic. I was putting a lot of pressure on myself. And then when conversations weren't going the way I had hoped, and uh my co-workers or the situations around me weren't going very well, I continued to like bottle that frustration up because I didn't know how to say what I wanted to say. I was feeling frustrated, but I didn't know how to go about it. And so that that um reaction, the body-based reaction was happening, but I didn't know that that was giving me a signal. I didn't know that you know, more than that there was more intelligence than just what's up here in my big, my big brain, right? So there's the rest of this body, this huge that I always refer to as like the rest of our uh intelligence is is happening all around us, but we tend to shut it off. So you're what you're referring to, like I first off, I I would refer to neurodivergence as nerdy divergent. I I think that there's so many of us nerds out there that about this stuff that the nerdy divergent part of us is like, no, that's the beautiful part of what makes you who you are. And actually, most people are just not aware of the rest of their intelligence, and and it's a much better pathway to actually listen and react and respond from. So, for example, if I'm having a really difficult conversation, instead of continuing to, you know, escalate it by no, you said this and you said that, just be like, whoa, wow, I'm feeling tight in my belly right now, and I just want to stop for a moment and take a deep breath. And just take that deep breath. Because what I was finding is that that stress uh that I was having and and you know, this has been 12, 13 years ago, was escalating. It was building up and it was building up over time. And I didn't want to continue that process, but I also didn't know how to fix it. So now, after you know, I've I've had some really amazing mentors, Gay and Kathleen Hendricks. Um, Gay published a well-known book called The Big Leap. They published like 50-some books, but they've been specialists that have taught me that, hey, you can you can express an unarguable truth uh by just tuning into like what are you feeling? Well, I felt uneasy in my belly, or I'm feeling tight in my my jaw right now, and I'm wondering if you know what needs to shift for us to have a more um harmonious conversation. And you had mentioned like you that you hadn't really shared this in the show before, that you've put on a mask um to pretend that you you you've got a different level of awareness. Can you show me like from a somatic perspective? Because you asked, what is what are somatics? Like, embody that for a minute. Show me what that that mask feels feels like for you. Can you show me just visually what what that looks like? Like shift your posture and show me what that looks like.

Jay Johnson:

That's super interesting because it probably looked a lot like this, where it was just like and and because it was never something that covered my eyes. And for those that are just listening in, I'd kind of lean back, brought my arms across my chest to protect my chest, brought my hand up to my mouth to kind of cover my mouth, my nose a little bit. Because one of the things, and and like I and I'm gonna try to intuit maybe where you're going with this. As you said that, I was thinking to myself, my eyes were always watching every single movement, every single reaction, every single action. I trained myself in body language behavior, so that way when I saw a behavior, I could choose whatever behavioral script, like, oh, here's how I demonstrate sadness. Oh, here's how I demonstrate X. Because I wanted to fit in. I wanted to give the right thing. Number one, when you have to intellectualize every single emotional interaction, it's exhausting. Number two, it's not perfect and you miss and the mask slips and you make some kind of mistake. So I think that's probably why I covered my mouth because it was like I'm I held so much back because I wasn't sure. I didn't know if I was playing the right script or if I was reading the right signal or anything else. And the covering of my chest was sort of like the defending myself. At least that's kind of how I'm interpreting it in real time as we're sitting here.

Yancy Wright:

Yeah. So sounds like in a lot of ways that there was an intellectualizing of through your eyes and your processing through your eyes. And what I notice is that um a lot of times when we're when we're trying to figure something out through our eyes, what we do energetically is we loop out, meaning um we're not in our own center anymore. We're outside of ourselves. And I've I'm gonna speak from my own perspective because I did I've done this a lot. Is I'm like, what do they need? What do they want? How are they responding? How are they reacting? Like uh all from a place of I want a harmonious environment and uh a peaceful environment, and what do I need to do to make that happen? Which that's not in our control. What is in our control is how we create a harmonious environment within ourselves. And so I notice that if I'm if I'm looping out with my eyes, trying to figure that out to come back to my breath, and with each in-breath coming back to my own center, and then with an outbreath, just being able to simply acknowledge, oh, okay, I'm I'm connecting to them, but then I'm coming back to my own connection. Because you're right, it's exhausting when we're not able to just be our authentic selves. And and when we're trying to, you know, respond, react, uh, or a lot of times we're making judgments and stories based on what we're seeing happening. We're seeing certain behaviors, we make them some stories. A lot of those stories or judgments are based on our own traumas, our own backgrounds, our own things that have happened, and it's not always accurate. Sometimes it can be pretty accurate, but it doesn't really matter because that's that's not your your responsibility. What's in your what's in your control is to be honest, to be authentic, and be like, wow, I I something changed in our conversation right now, feels a little wobbly, and just be able to say that out loud instead of intellectualizing that and then trying to figure out what I need to do, just call it out. Like call it out. And it's so much easier because then it gives that other person an opportunity to be like, oh, well, or if they if they deny it, then that's up to them. But at least you are able to clear the space and get current in noticing a wobble in the in the shift and be able to um just move that energy on quickly. Because if emotions are energy and motion, those emotions tend to just be swallowed. Like if you're frustrated and you don't say anything, you just swallow it. And a lot of people do that, and then it just builds up. So if emotions are energy and motion, it's better to quickly keep current with the person you're communicating with and to express what's going on, be like, wow, I feel some tension in my neck, and I notice like putting a lot of pressure on myself to say the right thing right now. And boom, then then you're creating a space for something new to emerge. And so a lot of times, what I'll do or how I'll work with people, I just asked you to kind of bodify how that mask looked because it it starts to um help us become aware of what we're unconscious of and the way I work with people in nature, because it sounds like you you love taking people out into nature as well, is that I'll just give them a uh a trail and I'll know that it's super muddy in a certain area, and then I'll stop everyone and be like, okay, so how do you, as a leader, how do you typically like to move through muddy situations? And they're all like, Well, what do you mean? They're like, Well, okay, you do you want to just forge through? Do you like to find a different pathway? How do you like to do it? And so I'll give them an opportunity to figure out who's gonna go first, and then they all go their own ways, but it tells me however they move through that muddy situation tells me um usually how they move through their own, what their own leadership style is. So if they're the type that kind of tiptoes around the mud and doesn't want to get muddy, if they're the type that just like plows through and and misses that there was a whole nother trail, it wasn't muddy at all.

Jay Johnson:

That was me.

Yancy Wright:

That was me. Yeah. Or the or the type that plows through and is like, this is awesome. I'm getting muddy. Um, there's no right or wrong. It's about helping raise the awareness around how you're doing things so that you can become more efficient. As a high performance leader, it's it's all about how are you leading yourself, like I said, because that creates a ripple effect that then impacts those around you. And those ripple effects are happening from exactly what you were saying earlier, which is it's your your tone of voice, it's your body movements, it's uh not necessarily the words. And so having having a higher level of awareness of those things that most people are unconscious of, it really starts to amplify how a leader can lead in integrity and through a more efficient way.

Jay Johnson:

There's so much to it. We're gonna come back to the nature. There's so much wisdom in what you said. And if you're listening in and you're an HR manager, or you're somebody that has to have a difficult conversation, or maybe it's time that you're at performance evaluations. I want you to really hear what Yancy had said there because those moments, what we and what I've seen from myself and what I've seen from any of the people that I've worked with, we are so afraid. And I'm going to get to a question on this, Yancy. We're so afraid to call out what some of those feelings are inside. And we're so afraid to say, you know, I'm really experiencing a lot of discomfort in having this conversation. I just wanted to share that with you. So maybe you knew that where I was at, how are you feeling, or even having a conversation about those emotions. One of the things that you said, you know, made me think about one of the statements I always make is if you're not talking it out, you're acting it out. And I think that's so important that when we can notice that we are acting it out or feeling it out or anything else like that, and that somatic side of things, that should give us an indication like take action here. So let me ask the question that's related to this. There's a lot of people that I would assume notice the gut feeling or notice the reaction and maybe have some fear for vo putting a voice to it or acknowledging it or recognizing it or even owning that fear. How have you helped them to maybe overcome that resistance to the vulnerability of sharing or to the fear of sharing, whatever that might be that's blocking them? How have you helped them overcome that resistance?

Yancy Wright:

Yeah, it's weird. It's it's a weird thing. The the idea to just be vulnerable and transparent about what you're feeling is kind of a strange thing. And it's super powerful. It's a it's like a game changer because instead of intellectualizing he said this, she said that, he did this, he did that, that's the story that's always arguable. But when you just simply say, wow, I'm feeling a lot of like tension and pressure on my chest, and I'm wondering like what that's all about. Um, and what what you can do is just simply give yourself that freedom to be authentic. And uh even if I'm speaking in a large group, I can I'll sometimes stop and just be like, I just want to stop for a moment and take a deep breath because I'm noticing because there can be wobbles in the room that I'll notice where people are like, what? He's saying, Do what? And so the steps that I would recommend are first kind of practice even without people around doing a body scan, just like tuning in with your fingers, like checking your ears, your jaw, just noticing what sensations, sensations you're feeling. It doesn't have to be uh judge, you don't need to judge it yet. It's just getting curious of like, oh, whoa, solar plexus, that's a little tight right there. Hmm, I wonder what that's about. But do that body scan so that you on a daily basis, you're starting to get more in tune with your body because this the only thing about somatics, it's a fancy word for body intelligence. And uh we have this whole system. We've we've modern medicine has kind of like separated it, but I'm saying, hey, it's all it's all there. The brain is not the only thing. You know, our heart and our brain actually have neuropathways, and 80% of it, 80% of them they found are are ascending. They go from the heart up to the brain. That's where our intuition comes from. That's where a lot of emotions come from. So it's about tuning into this whole wise system. And so simple steps. If you do want to reveal something to someone and it's a difficult conversation, first make sure they're available. Are you available for a conversation? Because if they're not available, that's not a good thing to do. Second is to just, you know, acknowledge what you're feeling. I'm feeling a little uneasy in my stomach right now, and and I notice like not wanting to disappoint you, and and I have something I want to share with you. Second step is um, so so that was unarguable. Second step is making a clear request. You know, I noticed you um ate my lunch today, Jay, and um I was really looking forward to eating that lunch, and this isn't the only time that's happened. And and then making a clear request. And I like to make a clear request for you to ask me first before you eat my things. Are you willing to do that? And uh then I don't know, I'm just making stuff up as I'm gonna go. But but it's simple steps. Are you present, face them, uh acknowledge what's going on in your body and make a clear request? Because uh, you know, if it's an HR director having a difficult conversation, it's just like the same thing because the HR director is dealing with this stuff all the time. And and if that's who's listening and you're you're challenged with having a difficult conversation, then it's just acknowledging your own feelings allows them to acknowledge theirs. It gives them space to tune into theirs. If you take a breath to pause, it allows them to take a breath and pause. And so true leadership coming from influence is about how do we show up in the best version of ourselves that allows that to happen for them.

Jay Johnson:

I love the steps because those are easy, they're practical. You can do that, you can practice it and make that into essentially a repeatable set of behaviors. I I really, really like that, Yancy. So, one question that I would have, and and kind of still on this topic is I would say that, and and this is coming from my own personal experience. I probably lied to myself a lot. Because I think that, you know, like it's hard to do the the retroactive analysis of how was my body feeling during this? How was, you know, because those are moments, they're moments and times. I I do remember in some cases where I felt like a nauseous feeling, or I would feel like a tightness in the jaw and an anger or something of that nature. So that I I have some recollection, but you know, eyewitness testimony is not always valid because we re-remember things, we don't necessarily truly remember them. So going forward, I've been very, very dulled in and tuned in. But I know that before that happened, I probably a stomach thing would happen. I'd be like, oh, I must be hungry. And it probably had nothing to do with hunger. Or um, gosh, I just got the shivers. Now the temperature hasn't changed. I haven't done anything. Maybe I've eaten, maybe I've sleep, I slept, or whatever else like that. Like, oh, I just gotta chill. And there's no, like, there's no kind of internal reflection, or potentially there's a self-deceptive internal reflection. How do we learn to trust what those different signals are that are coming out somatically?

Yancy Wright:

That's um that trust is about um just simply recognizing that your body is telling you something and uh starting to track what it could mean. So, for example, even though we're very different individuals, we all have a nervous system that's wired pretty much the same, unless there's something major that's been done after an alien abduction. Um but because that's the case, uh the the way the simple way that I would break it down based on the Hendrix Institute's work is that anger hangs up here, hangs out in the jaw, the neck, the shoulders, the back. Sadness hangs out here, and then the belly is fear, and joy starts in the heart and radiates outward. And then if you want to get more access to joy or your creative flow, then you need to make sure that those emotions are not unexpressed. The more that those are unexpressed, the more it kinks your access to your creativity or your flow. So um it's really important to be able to be able to know, like, oh wow, I'm I'm having this tension in my jaw. I wonder what that's about. But approaching it from a creative uh mindset is much better than judging yourself or making yourself wrong for feeling those feelings. Another way to look at it is practicing just full-body yeses and no's. I think it was an interesting concept of like, okay, and I'll do this with with coaching clients or with groups where I'll say, hey, I'm gonna give you some random scenarios and I want you to quickly answer without trying to answer from here. Answer from your body and and see if you can tune into where. So if I ask you, Jay, do you want some ice cream right now? No, where'd you feel that in your body?

Jay Johnson:

Uh in my stomach, and partially because I know that and and I don't know if it's because it's like a lactose intolerance thing. Like I don't get sick, but it's just like it the moment that you said it, like I felt the cramp kind of come into play. And it happened so quickly that my response was pretty fast, you know? You and I are the same.

Yancy Wright:

So uh it's a it's a quick no for me as well. But you were able to tune into that super fast, and that's the important thing. A lot of leaders are not. And so I'll start with simple things and then I'll start to get more complex. And even over a couple of days while they're here on retreat, I'll start to challenge them periodically of like, is that a yes or is that a no? Because so often we try to intellectualize and we get into analysis paralysis versus just like immediate feedback. Our body is always giving us immediate feedback. I trust it more now than anything else. Yeah, because it it knows before our brain does. And that's what's so fascinating is that it's something that our society is just now starting to get in tune with and starting to rely on again. So that trust, like right now, I can't trust the media, I can't trust social media, I can't trust what someone else tells me based on what they read from somewhere. But I can definitely trust, and and it's not arguable, I can trust what my body's feeling.

Jay Johnson:

Yeah.

Yancy Wright:

So just getting more in tune with that is super key as a leader right now.

Jay Johnson:

And it's it's it's so well documented now. And you know, neuroscience is, I don't want to say uh it's a continuing, continuing, continuingly. Wow, I'm not even gonna try. It's growing, right? And and part of the thing with that is our technology's gotten better. We've actually been able to sequence, we've been able to look at a number of different things. When I, you know, when I kind of dedicated my my research interest into the neurobiological, it was because I was like, I need to understand where these things are coming from. And you're spot on. You know, the the neurons in the gut, the neurons in the other parts of the body, the vagus nerve, the gut brain connection, all of those different pieces, they send signals back and forth. So if you are feeling something in the pit of your stomach, there's probably something there. Is it logically thinking it? No. And I think that that's where you said what you said is so important. One of my defense mechanisms was always intellectualization. If something happened, I'd study it, I'd research it, which has helped me explain it, but it didn't help me predict it, and it didn't necessarily help me influence it. I'd have to make that choice every time. When I started listening to my body, it started to become a little bit easier. It started to become one of those, like, okay, this isn't aligned. I don't know why. I haven't thought about it, but it became kind of like burnout was that early warning system. And what I've noticed, and and maybe you can just speak to this for a second, what I noticed is I would have I'm having body reactions so much earlier than when I could even uh I can feel when the anger starts to hit before I've even contemplated why I'm angry, what I'm upset about, what was stated that triggered me, or anything else like that. And when I get that experience, that gives me just a little bit of space to take a step back and say, okay, let's listen, let's tune in and listen to what's being said and what's not being said. Or it gives me some space to say, let's, like you said, take a deep breath because I don't want to react, I want to respond and I want to respond appropriately. That early warning notice has been very helpful for me, not putting my foot in my mouth nearly as much as I have in the past. So that what is your experience with that? How do you help people say, hey, um, you know, we've talked a little bit about the trusting it, but sensing it before it actually creates the condition for a behavioral reaction. What does that look like in Yeah?

Yancy Wright:

I I try to come up with uh like as streamlined and as nature-based of a process as possible, meaning sometimes we can bypass and try to override what we're feeling with trying to take a deep breath and uh slow down versus just saying, wow, I feel angry right now, or wow, I feel actually I've I feel a little triggered right now. And and just acknowledging what you're feeling in the moment is the fastest, easiest thing that I would recommend. Because and and a lot of people are afraid to do that, especially in the workplace, because you use the word anger and then all of a sudden everyone freaks out. Um rather than rather than uh acknowledging that anger is a normal, healthy human emotion.

Jay Johnson:

Yep.

Yancy Wright:

And uh, and if someone says I feel angry, that's way healthier than the slip up later when they start blaming or yelling at someone. And they act it out. Yeah and they act it out, right? Uh, but the the other element of that is that a lot of people are not aware that it's actually not anger most of the time, especially for us men. Most of the time we're being perceived that we're being angry, but it's actually fear. We're in a fear fight response. You're driving down the road, someone cuts you off, you're like, that's not anger. It comes out looking like anger. It's a fear fight. You're afraid that they were gonna impact your car, impact the people that were in your car, and it comes out or appears as anger. It took me uh, I don't know, a year and a half of arguing with one of my girlfriends that about um uh at the time, she and I were in the same training. And so, yeah, she was like, No, you're not angry, you're just afraid. No, I'm not afraid. And so it was You're afraid, I'm not afraid. Totally afraid. Uh and I was uh running this unconscious fear a lot as fear of failing or fear of not being enough or fear of disappointing someone. And so the more that we can become aware of these things and just call it out when it happens, the easier it is for us to show up authentically and then be able to create space for those around us. If I just say, wow, I noticed I'm having a little bit of fear of us succeeding on this on this retreat right now, um, because it doesn't feel aligned. It feels like we have a couple of people in different places. And what I'm wondering is, can we all just take a moment to see where we're at and do a quick check-in so that we can get back in alignment and keep moving forward together as a team? So those those moments when you can acknowledge them, call them out, and you know, do it without having shame around it, it just allows for so much more flow to occur. And I ultimately like to have harmony in in what I'm doing, and that makes it more fun for me because I'm in integrity at that point, because I've been able to express. I'm not withholding something, I'm not making something up, I'm not like gritting my teeth, and then it and then it flows so much easier.

Jay Johnson:

Yeah, and see, sometimes I think the universe does look out for everybody. Like this is exactly the conversation that I needed today, and I know that there are a number of people in this audience that are probably going, huh, it can't be that easy. And this is what I have found through behavioral science. The easier it is, the more likely you can actually do it. The more complicated it is, the less likely your brain's gonna take this. I am going to take your message to heart and really try to actually verbalize and bring out and bring awareness to what is happening inside. Because I I and you used a phrase, um, it's an unarguable truth. It's an unarguable truth if I'm feeling tension in my chest. Somebody can't say, no, you're not, you know. Uh somebody can't tell you, hey, uh you don't have a pit, you know, a cramp in the pit of your stomach. Exploring what that looks like, that can be the negotiation or that can be the exploration. But I really like what you're saying there as sort of a focal point to, hey, why don't we bring this back together, realign, reintegrate, and then we can maybe move forward where nobody has a pit in their, you know, a cramp in the pit of their stomach. So I'm gonna take that and I'm hoping for the audience to literally hear this, give it a try. One of the ways that we overcome some fears is by doing something and noticing that we still survive. So even if that sounds scary, give it a try. I think that's gonna be a game changer for a lot of people. I wanted to shift. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I want to shift into so one of the things that you have as part of your background is forest therapy. And I know we don't have a ton of time, and I'd probably even like to invite you back to have some conversations about forest therapy, uh, just as its own topic. Because I think these are two really, really fascinating areas for me, and I think they can be for else. What is forest therapy? Talk us through that. Give us some insights about what that might look like.

Yancy Wright:

Yeah, uh, thanks, Jay. I actually grew up in the mountains. I grew up in the woods. So um I would say that it's just a fancy term for helping people connect to their senses. I as a as a leader, working with leaders, I know that most of them are up here in their heads, like in the future, in the past. And when I take them and drop them into a beautiful spot in the rainforest, it's um it's it's often that they're talking about things and missing so much detail. So one of the first things I'll do is I'll stop them and have them close their eyes, take some deep breaths, and then walk them through each of their senses to get them present. If I can dial up their senses, all of a sudden time starts to expand for them because they're more present through their senses. And if I can help them get more present through their senses, then it's going to raise their awareness of their body intelligence. And so the nature adventure itself becomes this um heart-softening, heart-opening approach, like where they're connecting more to their emotions, connecting more to their senses. I'll have them, you know, even consider not talking about anything of the future or anything of the past, which is challenging. But then they're really curious. It gets them into this creative, curious, playful, kid-like mindset where they're like, whoa, what is this? What does this smell like? Or what is this? Uh, where's that bird sound coming from? Versus typically they're like, okay, how far do we have to go? How many steps am I going to get in? Okay, where's the river at? And they're missing all the beauty along the way. So it's just uh uh the forest therapy piece is just allowing us to be nature. We've forgotten that we are nature, and connecting people to their true nature by dialing up their senses.

Jay Johnson:

I, you know, what you said there about like, hey, how how long before we get to the lake? And they miss literally the entire journey. And you know, you think about the phrase that we hear all the time, oh, they're missed, they missed the forest for the trees, or, you know, I find that to be, and actually, I was just having a conversation with somebody, uh, another colleague, an incredible colleague, um, that was very aligned with that. And and we were having a conversation. It was more about like, you know, sometimes it's not the goal or the goal being achieved, it's the process that actually builds the relationship, that actually builds the skills, the knowledge, the resilience, and everything else. But we always kind of put our energy towards what is the end point? Because I want to get to that endpoint. And we don't slow down enough to realize that there is a ton of joy and opportunity that's being missed strictly by looking so far ahead that we can't see what's around us in a 360. So my experience, you know, one of the things that is I mentioned to you, I like to do survival trips. And I've been doing these since probably about 2009. First one was an absolute catastrophe and a failure, but learned so much from it. Uh, I've had great success ones. I've had some that are not so successful. And then I started taking people out there with me and kind of going through that experience. What I found is every time that I spent a day, two days, three days, four days, up to 10 days deeply immersed in nature, I came out differently. I came out feeling differently. My attitude, my joy, how quickly I could access information. And I know this is well documented in neuroscience. I think it's Dr. Mark Bergman that did a ton of work in this space. And I could be misquoting, but I'm pretty sure that that's it. What has been your experience when you've taken people through this forest therapy experiences, getting them to sense, getting them into this? How long is it? What does it look like? And how how have you seen them maybe shift? Whether that's even a somatic shift and you can see like more coloration in their face or more joy in their face? Or is it something that you've seen them shift over time? What's that experience been like for you, Yancy?

Yancy Wright:

Glad you're asking. We actually have done case studies on this. Um, and you know, the the science of bringing people into nature is really like there's a definite dopamine release. You're breathing in phyton sides from the tree. That are emitting these little chemicals in the air to help keep their own ecosystems healthy. And as we breathe it in, it boosts our immune system. But what we've done to prove how fast we can accelerate the learning process, or because we get a lot of people that are stressed out, overwhelmed, or we've got teams that are challenged and having a hard time collaborating. And so we're able to accelerate the process of getting them more into an open, curious growth mindset through not only the healthy food that we're feeding them and the nature and the conscious communication skills, but we've been able to reduce um uh blood pressure by 12% in a in a five-day period, which is significant. Uh that's typically really hard to get down that low. And this was for we've done three cohorts of eight people. And so this that's been the average. We improved cortisol levels by 44%. And that was compared to a baseline before they ever arrived. And these are people that were pretty stressed out and overwhelmed. And then we reduced stress weight by 87%. And what I mean by that is like it's the invisible weight of our stress that we carry. It's a subjective uh measurement that I made up. But those things uh are are really amazing to see the results that can happen in a five-day retreat. But the other thing, the physiological results, I see literally the color of their eyes like light up. Like it's just say that they come in a little more dull and the eyes are a lot more vibrant. I'd love to do before and after photos, but I fear that it may show up like those billboards, those dental billboards of like after look a little too cheesy or contrived, but I literally see it. And people just have a lot more joy back because we've detached ourselves from the very thing that gives us life force energy. It gives us longevity, it gives us vitality, and we've somehow decided to spend 85 to 90% of our time indoors. So when I get people here in the 85 degree weather in the tropics, especially when it's cold where you are, um it people light up. It's really easy, or even, you know, when it's not so cold where you are. And that's just one element. It's a layer of things. It's helping them and guiding them in a way that brings their their selves more conscious to how their body is responding, how they're feeling, feeling the flow of the river at their feet as they're kind of releasing all the things that they're thinking about that they don't need to be thinking about anymore. Or even getting them to write that stuff on paper before we even take them into the rainforest. It's all super helpful to give them little micro tools to then come back to and even to close their eyes and have that recording in their full body. That's the somatic recording of like what that water felt like on their feet, what the sounds were, because I we will have dialed them all up on those senses, that it's easier for them to close their eyes and go right back to that place. And then it also starts to decrease um their blood pressure by closing their eyes and going back to that place.

Jay Johnson:

Yeah, and see, I I I'm definitely going to be inviting you back because I'd like to dig into this topic and give it the due respect because even something, and I'm gonna share this with you, and then I I want to make sure that uh I want to make sure that the audience knows how to get in touch with you in case that they uh in case that they would want to reach out or experience any of these things. But I was on a five-day, no food, no water with me, only what I could find, only what I could scrounge and forage. And honestly, it was not a successful uh hunt and gather experience. So my calories, my nourishment for that full five day, I had water, that was perfectly fine, but my calories was probably somewhere around 500 for the five days. So that you're talking about a hundred average, hundred calories a day, very, very low. Um when I came back from that, one of my very, very close friends looked me in the eyes and said, Huh, you look fantastic. And I'm thinking to myself, like, I just malnourished myself for five days. Like I'm feeling weak in my body and everything else. And there's just like, there's like a there's a light in your eyes. And they said that phrase. And it was so interesting to me that when you said this, I mean, that that memory popped up, and I'm like, I would love to see the before and after photos. Um, I I think it may actually like whether or not we perceive the energy through the eyes, or whether or not we perceive the other person's like sort of like spiritual joy or emotional joy in there, because I did enjoy myself. It was a rugged, tough trip. I actually really enjoyed it. But I was thinking to myself, like, I look good right now. There's no possible way. So I love that you said that. I definitely want to spend some more time on this. But if if the audience wanted to get in touch with you, whether that was for somatic coaching, conscious communication, resilience, or forest therapy, how would they how would they reach out to you, Yancey?

Yancy Wright:

Yeah, so uh the retreat center that I have in Puerto Rico is called Casa Alternavita, A-L-T-E-R-N-A-V-I-D-A. And so Casaalternavita.com is a is an easy way there. Um, my name is luckily pretty unique. Thanks, Dad. Uh Yancey Wright. You can find me on LinkedIn. And then YancyWright.com has more information about me. I did write a book uh recently. It will be uh published soon. This is an advanced reader's copy. It's called Amplify Your Leadership. It's about uncovering the hidden ripple effects that impact you, uh, your team, and in the world beyond. So if you want to hear more about this stuff and see kind of both a personal journey as well as like case studies and more of the science behind how your unconscious thoughts, behaviors, and actions create ripple effects, then that would be, you can find that on yancywright.com.

Jay Johnson:

I can't wait to read it. I am gonna be uh I'm gonna be right in there in that early order. Uh, this has been an incredible conversation from a personal standpoint, very impactful for me. And I know that the audience who has struggled with a difficult conversation or who has not been able to make that decision, uh, can walk away with this and go, wow, there is really something powerful about naming the feeling that we have in the body and saying it out loud, bringing it out into space and and doing that in a in a way that essentially allows them, as you said, which I thought was really well said, to show up emotionally authentically. Because I think we always are constantly hiding our emotions. I thought I was the only person that was wearing a mask. And through this process, I've realized, um, you know, through the process of healing and going through a lot of that, I've realized everybody does to various extents. But it is something that I think when you can set those down, it is the world becomes so much lighter, much as you said. So thank you, Yancy, for sharing all of this information and wisdom with us today.

Yancy Wright:

Thank you for having me here. It's the only pathway to actually build trust. It's beautifully stated.

Jay Johnson:

And yeah, that that resonates more than I can say. So thank you again. And uh I look forward to having you back to so we can dig a little deeper on some of these other topics. Thank you, Jay. Take care. And thank you, audience, for tuning into this episode of the Talent Forge, where together we're shaping workforce behaviors.

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Jay Johnson, CEO and Co-Founder of Behavioral Elements

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