Tech Exec Wellness Podcast: Conversations to Reignite Your Soul
In the fast-paced world of technology, where innovation and disruption are the norm, tech executives often find themselves caught in a whirlwind of high-pressure decision-making, long working hours, and constant connectivity. The relentless pursuit of success and the demands of their roles can take a toll on their mental, emotional, and physical well-being. However, a new narrative that emphasizes the importance of tech executive wellness as a crucial component of sustainable success is emerging. This is the story of the tech executive's journey to rediscover balance, prioritize well-being, and ultimately thrive in their personal and professional lives.
If you're ready to embark on a wellness journey that will empower you to live your best life, I invite you to subscribe to Tech Exec Wellness, Navigating the Digital Balance, wherever you listen to podcasts. Together, let's cultivate harmony within ourselves and radiate positive energy to the world. Each week, we'll explore a wide range of topics related to wellness, inviting experts, thought leaders, and everyday individuals who have transformed their lives through mindful living, self-care, practices, and holistic approaches. We'll dive deep into areas such as nutrition, fitness, mental health, spirituality, mindfulness, personal growth, and more.
Tech Exec Wellness Podcast: Conversations to Reignite Your Soul
Ep. 6: Interview With Violet Sullivan, CIPP US
In this episode, Violet Sullivan, CIPP US shares her insights on staying sustainable in the ever-changing field of cybersecurity, including wellness practices and managing stress during data breaches. She also discusses her outlook on AI, social media, and time management. Don't miss this exciting episode where Violet takes us through a memorable concert performance at Madison Square Garden with her favorite artist.
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Welcome back to another episode of Tech Exec Wellness. I'm your host, Melissa, and I'm Erica. Today, we are thrilled to have Violet Sullivan in the house. She is a leading cybersecurity and privacy attorney and certified information privacy professional with a decade of experience in guiding clients through pre and post-incident services. She specializes in proactively preparing businesses for cyber incidents and efficiently managing breach responses, earning trust among both public and private sector clients, including Fortune 100 companies. Ms Sullivan currently leads the cyber services team at a law firm and has a heart for growing resources for cyber insured to properly equip them for issues in cyber privacy and emerging technology issues. In her downtime, she loves the world of academia and serves as a professor of cybersecurity and privacy law at Baylor Law School's LLM program, where her focus on litigation management adds unique value for general councils and law firms nationwide.
Speaker 1:Violet is someone I met through my network and is one of the most genuine and caring people I've ever met. I was down with COVID earlier this year and it was just a really rough time, and Violet one Friday night, says I'm going to send you dinner. No, no, no, no, no, please don't do that. And she did so. We ended up getting this amazing Chinese food from one of the best restaurants in Dallas, and she's someone I wholeheartedly respect. I'm so lucky to call her friend Violet. Welcome to the show.
Speaker 2:Ah, thank you. Who knew that Egg Drop Soup was going to be our connector for a future? But I mean, when I'm sick that's what I crave. Right Is like some warm, some kind of soup, and that was. You know. It lucked out that it was actually good. I didn't know if it was going to be good or not.
Speaker 1:Well, it was very good. Before we get started, though, I'm asking this of every guest Can you tell us your favorite music genre, artist, and if you've had a memorable concert experience you'd like to share with us?
Speaker 2:What a way to start off, kind of like the redirecting from the bio I think I go back to like an actual artist that I grew up listening to and I don't even know how I started liking this music. But I think it's because I didn't really have a genre growing up and I had the tape Ultimate Billy Joel two tapes set in my 88 Volvo when I was in high school and that thing never left my tape player. I would listen to it over and over, I think because he does so many different kinds of music, and so I started liking Elton John and you know just the people that are really different and interesting and creative songwriters, that is amazing.
Speaker 1:Now what about concerts? Is there one that sticks out?
Speaker 2:in your mind. I am just going to keep repeating myself. I went to Billy Joel of Twice in Madison Square Garden and I am a fan and my husband went with me the last time and he was like, yeah, this isn't going to be that great. And he was like that was amazing. He's such a performer. So I think even people that don't know his music or think he's just like the we Didn't Start the Fire guy end up liking his concerts.
Speaker 1:I would highly recommend 52nd Street. That is probably one of my all-time favorites. I still listen to today.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, I love that album. It's awesome.
Speaker 3:Billy Joel is so great. Thank you for sharing that with us. I really appreciate it. He's just amazing. So getting into this. Can you walk us through your career journey and how you got into technology for all of our listeners?
Speaker 2:Well, I feel like everyone's, especially in cybersecurity. You'll have to tell me if it's true for tech, erica and Melissa, but I think everyone almost gets just dropped into it. There was not a lot of classes that you take in preparation and even now when I see the content of what in academic world, people are teaching, like that's not how it really is. There's all kinds of little niches and things to do, and so my cyber story is similar. I was kind of thrown into it, but mine happened.
Speaker 2:I think you assume a lot of things when you're in different parts of industries. I was in oil and gas and I assumed when I moved back to Texas that would be a super easy career path to continue. I'd only been out of law school for four or five years, so I was a baby lawyer and I was like, oh well, I'd done a different types of law. I can do oil and gas in Texas. Well, the price of gas was so low the year that I was trying to move that there were no jobs, and it was almost like that realization of one. I graduated in 2008.
Speaker 2:So I saw one financial crisis, but then I saw an industry pivot and I started realizing, oh my gosh, I really have to learn what I want to do and what I like doing. Because I couldn't figure out how to. I couldn't force the economy to change for oil and gas. So I took a job with this company that I didn't even know what they did, but they responded to data breaches and I was like, oh well, this sounds fun. I got into it, lucked into it and within three weeks I was on the hotline and triage for the breach response to Albertsons and Supervalue. Within three months I answered the Home Depot calls with my team and again 800 other people worked on these breaches. But the fact that I was engaged with it and had to learn crash course, the operational side, is how I got to tech, and I realized too that we're all just kind of working through this together, that even the experts are still figuring things out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's definitely when you're working. Incident response, it's definitely drinking from a fire hose and I kind of had some of those pressures as well. But having had that experience, as you had Violet, what have you seen in the industry and even for yourself, how have you addressed the wellness? Because, having the hotline call working on a Sunday, you have two adorable little girls how have you been able to kind of manage that pressure?
Speaker 2:Well, it definitely helps to have a good partner. That is very much. Part of my story is that my husband has really stepped up when I've wanted to go out and solve cyber problems. But I think the biggest thing that I would say helps me in wellness was figuring out that not everything had to be solved by tomorrow. Like this idea that you can, I think zero inbox has to be a myth, and I think you get to a point of going OK, realistically, how many hours are there in a day? How can I get these things done? When I onboard people on my team, or even interns, I always tell them not to commit themselves. People are their own stressors when they commit themselves to. I'll get that to you today. I'll get that to you in a week and I've had to work with myself on that. To me, that really helped with wellness. It should not be a penalty if it takes you a week because you're juggling a lot of things.
Speaker 3:I love that. That is so impactful and powerful what you just said, because we are always in the we have to get this done and you end up over committing yourself.
Speaker 2:Oh yes, and even when you think you're not over committing and I'll say sometimes I'll even promise by the end of the week and that's still over committing, because you have to think about things in this bigger perspective of you have to go pick up the kids and you have to eat food at some point and, as I'm staring at my pile of Fritos on my desk right now, you do have to. In fact, I actually saw that I didn't have many open times today and I actually just labeled one of my calendar breathe a 30 minute that I was like don't let anyone else take this, I'm going to breathe and have some pie.
Speaker 1:I was telling Eric. I said I just got a text from Violet. She's eating leftover pie. So what kind of pie did you have?
Speaker 2:My favorite, best guilty pleasure ever is the coconut cream pie. It's so delicious, especially with a homemade crust. It was a leftover Thanksgiving pie. Hopefully by the time this is recorded people will know hey, it was just last week. I'm not eating the cream pie.
Speaker 3:Yes, I'm going to have to try that. You've never been more than a coconut cream pie. I do have food allergies, so I have dairy and gluten allergies, so I do have we serve this at I'll try this. There probably is. I'm going to look it up now.
Speaker 1:I think we should add some pie recipes to the website. I'm in the south as well as you are, and coconut cream pie, there's banana, there's chocolate. So there's this big variety, erica, of things that we do here in the south and, wow, the coconut cream pie. Just out on that one this holiday Taking notes, okay. So, violet, you're a thought leader on AI and cyber, and one of the things that I have seen is AI in the workplace, but I also see that there's AI-enabled fitness. There's one app out there where it will scan your body, and the first time I did it, I was like, oh my goodness, I feel like I'm in a I don't know a wetsuit or something, because here I am, I'm like I'll squeeze in, but anyways, the app allowed to pinpoint areas that I needed to work on. So, with that being said, how do you think AI is going to not only shape fitness, but the workplace, and what are your thoughts on it? Good or bad?
Speaker 2:Oh man. Well, you know, one of the things I love about our friendship, Melissa, is that you are the tech innovator side to my doomsday prep or privacy part of my brain, because you encourage innovation, where sometimes I think a lot of and I will say, in my whole privacy group of friends sometimes we're held back because we don't have enough innovators, right, we just keep saying no to everything. But I think that there is part of my thoughts kind of go back to and I wanted to read this in somehow, melissa, because I signed you up for another panel submission that we have, the one we labeled it Erica a woman's place is in the metaverse instead of a woman's place is in the house, and the whole focus was kind of how women are impacted in a different way, sometimes with new emerging technologies and breakthroughs, but I would throw AI in. This is part of it kind of makes me scared, melissa, that it's going to be actually more harmful. The ways that women have the culture has shaped their view of the body differently than males with magazines, and I don't know how that would work and I don't have a theory.
Speaker 2:I just feel like as soon as you say who is going to abuse detailed health information to an extreme, but the people that are more likely to get anorexia, bulimia, eating disorders, I don't know. It kind of scares me that there'd be so much detail. I'm just thinking about that part on the good side. I think I probably need to read more articles on it. I probably need to understand more of the good side, hear more about the innovation, because part of my brain just goes into oh man, there's a lot of data out there. Where are they putting this data? How are they securing this data? How are all the new AI companies that are out there thinking about whether or not they are protected?
Speaker 1:there's protected information, I was going to say you hit on something right there from the fitness perspective. Is somebody going to have a scan of my body? Where is that data going? Does that worry you at all? I mean, what are your thoughts on that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it does. My worry is, if you are of a certain type, are you going to be disproportionately advertised things that might be harmful to your health or beneficial to your health or again make you want to micromanage it too much? I think that the data piece is my worry and also because I see that we haven't even figured out and I think this is a lot of people in privacy Like how are you going to put guardrails up on AI? You can't even do a federal privacy law in the US. You can't even figure out how to have an overarching understanding of the civil liberties, of what personal information is to you. So how are you going to add to it your body mass index or your propensity to run?
Speaker 2:And then you think about if they're in the wrong hands. Right, if this data is intercepted at any point in the process, because I almost guarantee that all of these new technologies are going to have data storage questions and there's going to be data transfers and all of that data kind of zooming around in the world. That's what scares me. It's not that they're doing something with it and they have it, it's that they're not going to just keep it, because data is gold and it gets transferred.
Speaker 1:Okay, Now I'm really scared. So, with that being said, do you think there's a way that we can coexist with AI? Because I'm thinking right now my body scan. If I'm looking at something that got my retina, do I have any rights? Is there anything that I can do? Anybody can do.
Speaker 2:Well, I'm glad you redirected me and saying scared, because I know I'm not scared of in general I just immediately go to privacy when I think about it. But I do think that the inevitability of using this new technology it's important to kind of figure out how we're going to coexist, and I think the answer is learning more about it and understanding so that we can put the appropriate guardrails up. And I think what we also need to realize is it needs to be as nimble as a technology the rules around it that we create and the rules of how we engage with it and I feel like I'm broadly saying it but the rules of how we treat AI into our work and then also into our play and health and wellness. They have to be adaptable. It's not like we can wait for Congress to set up these rules, because we know once they set them up, it's going to change two months later. There needs to be an understanding of okay, it's going to affect the technology that we use. It's already affected the way we search things, the way we drive cars and with the self-parking features, it's already in chatbots and interactions.
Speaker 2:But I think brainstorming and understanding and learning more about it is the way that we're going to be able to coexist with it, because that's where we're going to learn. Well, one, I think we're going to learn. What does consent mean? Does using this material for my wellness mean that I'm consenting to their terms of how we use it? I think it's going to be a bigger deal on what our permission means, and we're seeing that play out in courts right now because of the pixel tracking litigation. People are starting to go. Wait a second. I didn't tell Facebook that they could have all this information from every website that I went to, yet those websites I went to sold that information to Facebook through their Metapixels.
Speaker 1:I was going to say it's interesting you started to say earlier about KFC. So what type of advertisements might I get? Should an image I don't need KFC. Just so the listeners know I cook at home, I'm organic, I'm one of those people, but am I going to be inundated with ads for running shoes or smoothies? You get what I'm saying. Am I going to be sent to marketers based on what I'm doing with my fitness?
Speaker 3:Yes, yeah, this actually leads into the next question I was going to ask, so I'm going to jump in here real quick, since we're talking about social media and the ad where and whatnot. I do have a question around that, but I want to tell you, ladies, something. I recently traveled to Scotland from New York on an airline. Instead of scanning my boarding pass, they scanned my face. It was the first time that I've done it personally, because usually you scan your phone or the actual boarding pass. Have you had this happen where they're taking your basically that's biometric data, right, and where is that going? So I kind of want to talk about that a little bit without getting too off topic, but can you give me a really quick point on that and then I'll ask you my next question.
Speaker 2:Well, I was the nerd the first time that happened. I went to go see their terms and conditions on their website because they listed on the. There's a sign says you know, we ask your consent and I was like, wait a second, nobody asked my consent. But there is an opt out when you go to the really small fine print and the website and all of that stuff and so they can not do that. That it decreases their efficiency of you moving forward. So I've seen that. I think it was like. I think the first time I saw it was maybe a year ago, so it was still recent. It is very new.
Speaker 2:Biometrics. That whole thing freaks me out because you may get and be able to open up new bank accounts, but you can't get yourself new fingerprints or retina scans. And then you see all the cartoons that do a picture of the eye. I don't know if you guys have seen the simulations of like how the Ocean's Eleven cracking of biometric data. I guess to answer your question on the airlines is there is a difference between doing what the law requires you to do and just is this okay for all of us to realize? All this data is out there, you know from need to have to nice to have. It's like, yes, you have a minimum threshold of requirements when you handle biometric data. They did ask for consent. They just assumed consent that you would go through you know the metal detectors and all the stuff to use your board at your face as a boarding ticket. But then there's also this level of okay, they may be compliant but it still doesn't mean just be the consent is their free ticket. If they can just get everyone and push everyone to consent, then they can have all kinds of back end uses that are reasonable of that data to create that profile that Melissa mentioned.
Speaker 2:But I'll tell you one of my favorite quotes from a privacy friend was like I wish we could time like if you have these websites, if you could time the ability to use the website from how long it should take a normal reader to read through terms and conditions, then I think we would get less people just skipping past it because you're you know you have these 25 page terms and conditions.
Speaker 2:And if you made everyone wait 10 minutes before getting to their page that they want to use to buy shoes or whatever, you'd have less people hitting the efficiency button. And if you made it more like a requirement to read and understand consent, and that's why I go back to AI. Consent that we talked about is, I think it's going to become a bigger deal because the more data that's captured on us, the more we're going to feel that big brother feeling of there is this marketing image created of us that includes things like IP address and geolocation data and when we traveled across state lines, you know there's stoplights. Stoplights gather data all the time and there's all kinds of satellites that are gathering information from your cell phone. So I don't mean to throw it into privacy world, but I do agree with you that that's definitely big brother and I think and I hope that that will help us kind of create those boundaries on how we interact with technology a little bit more than the last 20 years.
Speaker 3:Yep, and this actually is a perfect segment into the question I wanted to ask. So what are your thoughts on the impact of technology and social media on mental well-being, and how can we maintain a healthy relationship? You've kind of touched on this a little bit, but can you expand from your perspective?
Speaker 2:Well, I will say, personally I feel like I need to say practice what you preach, because I'm in a mental push and pull with scrolling on my own phone. I just do it on LinkedIn. So it's somewhat acceptable because it's for work, but same with like Amazon shopping is like if I looked at, I mean, the amount of I don't even want to publicize the amount of hours that I've engaged with my technology beyond just work and that's just throughout the day when my kids are trying to get my attention. I need to put it down and I think everyone has a different need that my brain really likes the interaction. It's a lot of dopamine to see new ideas.
Speaker 2:I'm a very inquisitive person, so for me to have bite-sized headlines from LinkedIn or videos that Melissa and I will send to each other from TikTok, of puppy dogs, whatever it is, those things are really stimulating to my brain. So I need to set up my own guardrails. I do think it goes back to what you guys have been talking about with wellness and fitness is, I think, if we can encourage each other to stop and smell the roses and get out and walk and run and engage with people in a very intentional way for authentic friendship and, you know, movement. I think that that's going to be the best way to balance, because we can't overemphasize that. We just have to get on top of this AI thing and move forward, or otherwise we're going to crush ourselves with work.
Speaker 1:So Violet, you know, when you're talking about screen time, I read something over the weekend how, as it goes into evening, you should be wearing blue blocker glasses. Now I'm wearing a pair right now because I'm protecting my eyes, but they said that you want to have those in place because it disrupts your circadian rhythm and if you find yourself listeners or Erica or Violet where you can't sleep at night, you might want to reduce screen time or put those blue blockers on because they will help and I didn't know that was a thing, but apparently it disrupts sleep.
Speaker 2:Well, and sleep is one of those things. I mean they write whole books on how important that is for longevity. Brain stimulation, I mean it's a big deal. So I would not doubt it, and I don't even want to pull up the blue glasses because I just need to put the screen down at night.
Speaker 1:And you've got two little ones, so do you give them an iPad to keep them entertained? Are you setting any boundaries in the house?
Speaker 2:Great question. You know you're hitting on one of my biggest pet peeves and I'll tell you because I know you're formal Apple and I should have just gone for the iPads and instead I went for the Kindle Fires. When I got them, what I know, I know, though you know it's the difference was being, you know, $600 and 50 on. Oh no, I get it, I get it. So I got them these. You know they were really young last year, but they were begging for tablets. I would commence myself. If I can limit the apps if they are on there, if I can limit the screen time to 30 minutes, then I could get this to them and I did. And they really only use it like once a month, like very, very infrequently. But my pet peeve was I spent so much time plugging in basically Privacy-proofing these things for kids, so that only had I.
Speaker 2:We call it like a learn, like we learning tablet and that's what we call it in the house, because it just had coding and it had like coding and Bible stories and like math games. Okay, so it's a super narrow down fire, but to do that took me so many Google searches and Research on how to limit all that crap that the, the main marketplace, has, because if you buy it out of the store and just say Default mode, it goes to Amazon fire children. Do you sign up for $9 a month? You know like crap. That just sits there and gives them how to paint this random manicure on the digital screen, which, or scooped ice cream scoops I mean like really mindless games, you know, candy crush, whatever you want to call these things it automatically gives it to them and feeds them.
Speaker 2:This like commercialization of more and more, not just for apps, and this is why I wish I would have gone with iPad, because on iPad you could have limited, really severely limited, without this huge marketplace Ability. Now, my biggest pet peeve here is that after all that effort, within six months there was a hard reset on both iPads and it automatically loops them in to the marketplace again and I haven't had the effort back or time back to reset it. So now they've gotten into all the crap games and Not that they use it that often, but it just pisses me off because I should have the whole time limited the preferences.
Speaker 1:Oh my goodness. Well, you know, when we launched iPad, or even iPhone, I should say we had that parental controls back then, and I myself, along with my peers, we're looking at the I think they were called KB articles, but learning how to do it ourselves. So I think, with parents, I think they have to conduct their due diligence. I'm aging myself here, but I had the speaking spell when I was growing up, so Erica, did you have one too?
Speaker 3:I am sorry to say that I don't know what that is Okay.
Speaker 1:We're admitting her from the conversation. But yeah, we had the speaking spell and I think there's something again. You talked earlier about guardrails. I think, if we can have parameters in place, technology is good for kids, right? I mean, again, speaking spell, that was my big to die back then, as well as that little calculator, mr Professor. Yeah, so that's what I had. I had the analog version of the fire.
Speaker 3:The speaking spell may have been popular, but I just probably didn't know about it. It was a thing back then but this is really great.
Speaker 1:So is there a cut touch, john, and I think maybe you just spoke about it. But how do we cultivate a healthy mindset? And I know when violet, you and I've talked before, we had mental blocks right, like, oh, how do we get past this? What have you learned? How are you overcoming that these days? It sounds like you're more mindful these days and you kind of recognize Situations and you can address them. Can you share some of us practices with us?
Speaker 2:Yes, I I honestly think that a lot of this comes down to bringing it down to practical and visible ways to address your schedule and your time and your, your ability, and I think I learned this from there. Have been friends in the past and coaches and you know therapists and all you know all kinds of support mentors, and the most helpful thing to me was to actually literally kind of look at one of those. You know I would draw it up, but you can buy these calendars that have hour by hour and Actually blocking off the hours to show yourself that there's not many hours in a day. So your people pleasing tendencies to commit to things, they have to have parameters To have that ability to get in the right mindset, because I think there's a just vicious cycle that we have which is Overcommitting, over promising, and we do it to our teams too.
Speaker 2:It's not just us right. It we impact more than ourselves. And when you over commit and over promise, then you just assume there's more time in the day to get this done and there's not, and then you end up failing. There's no buts about it. Like you can't always meet this for everyone and there do have to be priorities, and I do find that I have to reassess almost every week. When you talk about healthy mindset, I have to come back to and I hate to say it to myself because I hate to be the mom guilt person, but I have to say okay is saying yes to this, saying no to being around my family tonight Because I'm on a call and to respond to a breach, which I don't know if anyone's on the incident response side, but it is truly an adrenaline rush to be like it is out of Russian hacker we're talking about like cyber warfare, like it is so, and you feel like you're saving somebody because you're, you know, not used specifically, but your team is truly there to uphold the company while the lights are getting turned off. And it's a lot of adrenaline.
Speaker 2:But I think that's where I had the hardest time was how do you Create and and establish that healthy boundary of saying every yes means a no somewhere else or absolutely? I think the other mental block and especially for women I don't know if you have this or or you had to get past this at some point in your careers is how do you tell yourself that you can do it and keep yourself from holding back? And there's this quote, man. I wish I had the book right beside me For some reason. I love that it's, by this, like 18th century Jewish feminist, right. So it's like this old school feminist not just someone 10 years ago that it says and she said be the woman that everyone else says you can't be, or something like that.
Speaker 1:I love that.
Speaker 2:Like, be that woman that hasn't heard? No, wow. And I just always go back to that because I think you know we also, the mental blocks I think for ourselves are we can't do that, or we're not technical enough, or we don't have the experience or we've done. You know, we haven't done this role before and I think a lot of women in tech the strongest women in tech that I know have been confident, even if they're not 100%, and they're confident in trying.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. I think about my time in the military where a long time ago but you had to get the job done, it didn't really matter the gender, you just had to do it. So I think I've been able to take that over to the corporate life to kind of just keep pushing confidently and having grace under pressure. You mentioned earlier about over committing and, Eric, I don't know if you saw what I had sent you, but time is the new currency. So one of the things I've had to do after healing from my COVID journey is not over commit and it took me a while to kind of go internal to maybe boost my confidence.
Speaker 1:I don't know if that's really what I want to say, but I'm okay saying no to things now and I tell my immediate friends if I say no to you, don't take it personal. I have to take care of myself because I think when you get sick you go back and you reevaluate the situation and I over committed myself. My immune system was down and I think that's something that inspired me to do this podcast was hey, tech professionals, especially those of us in incident response, it's an adrenaline rush and you're working long hours, you're on calls, you basically got a lot of pots on the stove, and once all of that has been resolved, then it's like you can breathe and recalibrate.
Speaker 3:Absolutely. What did I tell you about this weekend? Melissa and Violet, you don't know this, but this weekend I was pretty much sleeping all weekend. I just shut down because I've been busy over the last couple of weeks and I think my body just took some time to heal itself because I just slept and I feel great today. Have you experienced that recently, either of you?
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh, just this week I got sick and I literally slept from five o'clock. I got really sick. I couldn't get out of bed. I went to sleep at five PM with Nyquil. I remember hazyly seeing my daughter crying because I couldn't tuck her in, because I tuck her in every night and I was like Violet, don't feel guilty, take care of your body, sleep. And I slept until seven the next morning, 14 hours straight, wow. So I totally hear what you're saying and I think my body does that too and I probably should be even nicer to it.
Speaker 3:I agree with you. I think between Friday and Saturday I slept 30 hours between the two nights, because it was basically 16 hours one night and then 14. The other One thing that I wanted to ask you, Violet, from your perspective, since we've already kind of been talking about this how can we build resilience and bounce back from the setbacks or challenges in our wellness journey?
Speaker 2:Really good question. One of the things that I've learned and I really do need to get back into this is there were some fitness routines and habits. I'm the kind of person that wants something to count for, like six punches and a punch card. I want it to not just be healthy, but I want it to be anxiety freeing and so like for me running or walking, or even like a Zumba class, some kind of physical activity. It does so many other things for me besides just keeping me healthy. It really helps my mental health and it helps my pausing and it helps my well one. It shuts me up too right, because when you're working out you can't over exert yourself in verbally processing everything, so you get out of mindset, you get recalibrated. So I would say the way to build resilience is to be able to kind of prove to yourself that it's not just workout. It is a well-rounded ability to engage with other parts of yourself besides your mind and your typing fingers.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and then, as you mentioned, if you're in a boxing class or something, you're not going to be able to do that. I had that problem on the Peloton while I did. When I do group rides, I'd be texting or looking at Facebook while writing Uh-uh. I don't want that anymore.
Speaker 2:I can't do that. I don't know how you're staying on their bike.
Speaker 1:Well, it's all in the abs, it's all in the, you know, using the ab work. But I want to ask one last question and this has been so amazing, ladies, but as women, and I want your perspective on this how do we create a positive self-image? I talked about the AI thing. Where did the body scan? And you talked about AI and how it could give us, like these, unrealistic expectations. So you have any guidance or suggestions on that?
Speaker 2:You know, the first thing that came to my mind and I'll tell you, I know that we had talked about some of these questions, but this one, the first thing just now that came to my mind was you got to kind of dance it out, like encourage each other to, and I don't know why dance came into my brain, but I think that one of the things that I realized post-20s like when I got into my 30s and now late 30s, almost 40 is you just have to start dancing and moving like no one's watching, and I really love that. That is to me. My whole self kind of changed when I stopped. You know, when you're in I don't know if anyone remembers high school dances you would just like look over your shoulder like who's watching me, who's seeing how cute I am? And then you're like, okay, wait a second.
Speaker 2:When you're dancing, and when you find out that group of girlfriends and this happened to me a lot in my 30s was like when you didn't care and it was hilarious and fun and you would be doing, you know, like the sprinkler. It is so much more freeing to really build up that and I think finding those women that kind of match your personality too, because everyone's different and people like to you know break out in different ways. And I think, being able to do that with other women and I've even done that with like a cyber, we've had like a cyber dance party and I'll tell you, I just remember Vivaldi I was in London last year and there were these really young, like right out of college, our university underwriters, and they were kind of, I think, teasing the older women a little bit because we were dancing all goofy and we're like you know what. We hope this for you, like we don't mind you teasing us, but we also hope that you get to a point that you don't care.
Speaker 1:I grew up with the breakfast club, so I was that and Erica and I talked about this before in an episode, but I was in the band, but I was the star soccer player, so I had that nerd slash jock thing going on, but for me it was the new wave punk rock scene and I don't know. I still feel like that person is still within me at my age and I still wanna just get out there and have a great time and I love that. You mentioned dancing, and is the sprinkler a dance? Is that what that?
Speaker 2:is no, you put like one hand behind Erica. You gotta know what I'm talking about.
Speaker 1:I was doing it as you were talking about it. I don't know what this is. I think I'm gonna have to Google it.
Speaker 2:Well, we will we look at this, We'll do a. What is it called? When you do TikTok I'm now gonna age myself and you like like pair it with somebody You'll have to do it, Look at the sprinkler. You put one hand behind your head and then you put the other hand and you just start like pushing them together like you're a chicken, but it looks like a sprinkler.
Speaker 1:It's like oh my goodness, I see it yeah.
Speaker 2:It's like the you know, the fish, the sprinkler, like there's all kinds of like what I call like dad dances that people do as a joke, and or like vogue you know people would put their hands up I can do the vogue. Any fun goofy you know, let loose. I think that was to me a big breakthrough in my positive self image. To me that was a big change and it's something I hope that all women can kind of get to that period and space of not caring how you are compared to others and having self compassion. The thing I need to work on for self compassion is probably just overextending and over committing and still people pleasing oh, violet you gotta stop.
Speaker 1:You definitely have to take time out for yourself and ensure that your wellness comes first. And I have to ask the two of you, before Erica wraps it up do y'all remember the Macarena and did you do it?
Speaker 3:Yes, oh yeah, yep, I was gonna bring that up. I was gonna say it's like the Macarena.
Speaker 1:I love it, yeah. So okay, here we go. I think we got something going here. The women in cyber doing the Macarena Melissa.
Speaker 2:I think a really good way to come back and full circle support your team and you and Erica is to actually invite everyone to go to whatever format they're listening to this or whatever format they're gonna send it out whether it's Spotify that's my favorite or Apple podcast and actually go hit, follow and keep watching you and interviewing people on this journey to wellness for tech executives, and also to throw on the stars there, because that helps when people are searching for the right fit. The podcast, the right thing to listen to, is to be able to see that engagement. You listen to an episode, you could throw on their review. You don't even have to say anything, but just the stars and following and any kind of interaction. That engagement with your new podcast is gonna help keep this going and bring us along on your journey. We should definitely do a.
Speaker 3:TikTok violet. I'm gonna hold you accountable to that, but this has been a great episode. Thank you so much for tuning in. Don't forget to subscribe to our podcast on a variety of platforms and check out our website at wwwtechexecwellnesscom. Again, wwwtechexecwellnesscom, and take care. Thanks for tuning in, take care.
