Episode 85: Neuro Biology of Team Culture & Epigenetic Play-Circuit Coaching! With Awesome-Sauce Alchemist, Rajkumari Neogy
Leaders, are you...
Looking for ways to build better team culture?
Interested in the science behind it?
Wondering how a positive AND negative work culture can affect your team’s brain?
This week on the improve it! Podcast, we’re sitting down to talk with Rajkumari Neogy, Awesome-Sauce Alchemist and expert in epigenetic coaching (you’ll find out what that is in today’s episode).
Rajkumari's passion is found deep in the intersections of interpersonal neurobiology, technology culture, and empathic language for business.
Sounds pretty cool right?
Tune in, listen, and don’t forget to leave us a review!
Get your notebooks out for this one and enjoy improve it! Fam!
Show Links:
Connect with Rajkumari Neogy:
Connect with Erin Diehl:
Erin Diehl is the founder and Chief “Yes, And” officer of improve it! and host of the improve it! Podcast. She’s a performer, facilitator and professional risk-taker who lives by the mantra, “get comfortable with the uncomfortable.” Through a series of unrelated dares, Erin has created improve it!, a unique professional development company that pushes others to laugh, learn and grow. Her work with clients such as United Airlines, PepsiCo, Groupon, Deloitte, Motorola, Walgreens, and The Obama Foundation earned her the 2014 Chicago RedEye Big Idea Award and has nominated her for the 2015-2019 Chicago Innovations Award.
This graduate from Clemson University is a former experiential marketing and recruiting professional as well as a veteran improviser from the top improvisational training programs in Chicago, including The Second City, i.O. Theater, and The Annoyance Theatre.
When she is not playing pretend or facilitating, she enjoys running and beach dates with her husband and son, and their eight-pound toy poodle, BIGG Diehl.
You can follow the failed it! podcast on Instagram @learntoimproveit and facebook, and you can follow Erin personally on Instagram @keepinitrealdiehl here. You can also check out improve it! and how we can help your organization at www.learntoimproveit.com. We can’t wait to connect with you online!
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Episode 85 Transcription
Erin (00:00):
Improve it! Family. Oh my God. I still have chills. Today's episode blew my mind. You are going to hear from Rajkumari Neogy. She is an awesome sauce Alchemist. And what the heck does that mean? She notices stuff, then she brings it to your attention and together helps you shift permanently. So Rajkumari's passion is finding the intersections of interpersonal neurobiology, technology culture, and empathic language for business. Rajkumari's expertise is an epigenetic coaching. You're going to hear what that means. She talks all about it, intelligent bias and the neurobiology of team culture. If you're like me and you're thinking, Erin, you know, I'm, I'm in talent dev or an HR human being. And what are some of these words that you're spitting off of me? Don't worry I Googled a lot before this show, but Rajkumari, I just know is going to be a lifelong friend.
Erin (00:58):
We had such a great time discussing business ideas. We discussed so much when it comes to the play circuit and how we can create this culture of belonging and why belonging is what we are wired for as human beings. It was so fascinating to me, the parallels between the work that she's doing and improv. And we talk a lot about those parallels and actually what happens when you can have the sense of trust with your teams, the actual science behind it, the actual things that we secrete out like oxytocin when we have this sense of trust or vulnerability, epigenetics is a fascinating world. So you'll hear all about that. And we also get into the left versus right hemisphere of the brain. And we talk about within the right hemisphere, why your play circuit is literally hardwired to play and what that happens to our brain when we actually connect to the right hemisphere and specifically to this play circuit.
Erin (02:10):
Oh my gosh. So Rajkumari just is literally a fascinating human. She's worked with organizations worldwide, including kilo signs, slack, Salesforce, Google it's just to name a few, Facebook. You'll hear that story as well. And in 2013, she founded I restart, which provides expertise in the areas of leadership development and organizational epigenetics. She's the creator of this I restart coaching framework, the disruptive diversity bootcamp and the author of the wit factor shifting the workplace paradigm by becoming your optimal self. So take out a notebook for this. You want a notebook or the notes on your phone. You just heard me putting down my phone, my notes. I have so many notes from this show. Sit back and enjoy. Welcome. Let's welcome Rajkumari Neogy to the improve it! Podcast. I can't wait for you to hear this. Let's Go. Are you a leader or change maker inside of your business organization or corporation?
Erin (03:15):
Are you looking for new innovative ways to drive more routes through the roof? Are you looking for fun and exciting icebreakers, team-building exercises and activities that will foster team growth, friendships, loyalty, and completely transform your organization from the inside out? Have you been searching for a fun and unique way to create change instead of this same old dry, boring leadership books and ice breakers that aren't actually working? Hi, I'm Erin Diehl, business improv, edutainer, failfluencer and professional zombie who is ready to help you improve it. My mission in life is to help you develop teams and leaders through play, improv and experiential learning. In this podcast, we will deep dive into professional development team building effective communication, networking, presentation, skills, leadership training, how to think more quickly on your feet and everything in between. We have helped everyone from fortune 500 companies to small mom and pop shops transform their business, their leadership, and their people through play. So grab your chicken hat. We are about to have some fun, welcome to improve it! The podcast.
Erin (04:43):
Okay. Improve it! Team, improve it! Fam I am literally. Rajkumari welcome to the show, welcome to the show you awesome sauce Alchemist. I can, first of all, that title makes me so happy. So love the awesome sauce alchemist. And I want you to introduce yourself to our audience with just a fun fact about you that we couldn't find. I told you before we hit record, I was a Googlin you today. So what's some fun fact about Raj Kamari that we couldn't find on your LinkedIn, your website, your bio. What's something that you want to share with our audience that we don't know?
Rajkumari (05:26):
A fun fact, well I just moved. And I seem to magically find these places that have the most gorgeous view. So I will share with you all that, as I'm doing this podcast, I'm staring directly at the golden gate bridge right now.
Erin (05:45):
Ah, that's a fun fact. You know, that's a lot of people's zoom background so.
Rajkumari (05:50):
This is my foreground.
Erin (05:55):
I'm just going to say, this is your foreground. So, you know, maybe turn the computer around you like this is a real background. You guys that's amazing. Okay. Well, congrats on the move. I know that's always stressful, but you did it and you're here now. So I want to, I want to jump right in because I literally, so you were one of the most fascinating people to me. I started Googling today and knew you were coming on the show and epigenetics is something that I was new to until today. So I want you in your own words, can you define epigenetics for the improve it! Team here?
Rajkumari (06:36):
Absolutely. I mean, you can definitely Google it and see the official definition, but I'm going to give you a different definition that's a more family friendly version, not the medical journal definition, which is, you know, the stressors in our environment, the stressors in the behaviors that we engage with people at world, people at home that actually impacts our cellular structure. It impacts our our, our neurochemistry. So if we are in a workplace that's awesome and that we're playful, trusting and vulnerable, our neurochemistry is absolutely mirroring that our nervous system feels safe. We're engaged, and we are performing at our absolute optimal best when we are an environment that is less than suitable for safety. You might have a micromanaging boss. I know I certainly did. And we might have some coworkers who are kind of on fun to be around in meetings that also absolutely impacts our cellular biology as well as our neurochemistry.
Rajkumari (07:43):
So that's the first piece of epigenetics, but the more fascinating piece for me is that according to the research and specifically Rachel Yehuda's work from 2016 she did some really amazing research where she was able to show that children from Holocaust survivors actually carry similar or near similar symptoms of PTSD from those who are actually in the concentration camps. So this is a heartbreaking piece of data, right? And so epigenetics is that we carry according to Rachel and many, many epigeneticists the trades, tragedies and traumas in our cellular biology for centuries. According to Rachel, it's 210, according to Dr. Joy grew it's 300, according to Resmah, Medicam, it's 490 and I'm like, look, it doesn't matter how many centuries it sucks this around. And so the question is, how is your family history, your historical archives impacting the way that you're showing up at work? And that's the things I talk about all day long with senior leaders.
Erin (09:01):
Wow. Okay. I am so, so no one's watching this right now knows that we are not looking at each other on video, but I kind of love this because, and I know you do this work and I was looking on your website. You say, you know, don't come to me and come to your therapist in the same day, this is heavy stuff. You definitely don't. I'm like, let me lay down for a minute. This is fascinating work.
Rajkumari (09:30):
Oh, really did your homework. I mean, that's really intense because the coaching work that I do is about rewiring a very, very deep level. And therapy is a very, very different people say, oh, you just do therapy. And I'm like, well, I mean, people started to call therapy, like talking about feelings as therapy, no talking about feelings, talking about feelings.
Erin (09:57):
Exactly. You can go to dinner with a friend for that, you know, let's, let's do the work. No, I and I really did. This was on your FAQ page. I was like, what are some frequently asked questions? And that is, that was fascinating to me. So this, okay, you are cool. I just can't even handle it. And I'm so interested in this because years and centuries of our family history is actually seeping into the way that we show up. And I know personally for you, I again, did my homework, but was watching your YouTube video that you talk about some of the work that you do specifically with the disruptive diversity framework. And you mentioned that you've worked with some really cool companies from startups to Adobe, to Facebook. And I'm going to put the link to this YouTube in our show notes for our improve it! Audience. But you mentioned you didn't feel like you belonged at Facebook. And so my question is, but just sucks. Like, I hate that for you. Yeah. And I, you know, assuming, and you know what they say about assuming, but I'm assuming this might be what led you down this path, or what was it that led you down this path to epigenetics and drew you to this line of work?
Rajkumari (11:18):
Oh my gosh. Fabulous question. So it's, it's both, it's, it's both, actually it be meaning it's, it was definitely, you know, what happened at Facebook, but before I share what happened at Facebook you know, I, I had really, really challenging childhood is that my therapist actually finally got me to use the words cruel and horrific last year. So I, I define my childhood as cool, horrific, and, you know, that needed some therapy therapy. And I definitely didn't spend some time kind of unpacking that over the course of many years. And in this process, I found an organization called and it'll pay my rent here in Northern California. And I went there to do, to learn NLP, which is neuro-linguistic programming, which is rewiring the brain, but this organization is actually super duper awesome, because they also bring in quantum physics.
Rajkumari (12:16):
They also bring in psychology and they also bring in this modality that I, at the time called family constellation. And this is a mind blowing experience. And I just fell in love with that modality and have really been, you know, deep diving into it ever since. So just kind of, that was really helping me to heal and helping me to really reconnect with myself and, and release the difficulties and the hardships that I had endured. So fast forward to Facebook here I am, and you know how they say Erin? Like people don't leave jobs, they leave managers.
Erin (12:50):
Oh yeah! 1000%
Rajkumari (12:52):
Totally the opposite for me. I loved my boss and I'm not sure going to name his name because I think the world of him, we're still friends. His name is Stuart crab. He's was the head of learning and development over at Facebook. Incredible, incredible human. I love Facebook. It was a really hard place to be, and I'm not going to get into the details of that. As a, as a, you know, a way of being respectful, but I felt really, really incredibly challenged and to be quite honest, really confused because I loved working for Stu. I loved what I did. And I loved obviously the notoriety of being at Facebook, especially at that time. And I actually ended up running from the building. I just couldn't take it anymore. And that just kind of spurred this whole journey. I, I left and I gave Stu a big hug. And I went off to Southeast Asia for two months to eat a ton of noodles compress. And, and to really go like WTF, what did I just experience? What the heck was that? And that, that pain started me down this route of, oh, exclusion, huh? Wait, there's research on this. Wait there's research that says the social exclusion actually registers as physical injury in the brain come on. Really was just the rabbit hole to take me into where I am today,
Erin (14:26):
Physical injury and the brain. Okay. That is, that is so fascinating. And now you've spent, how many years have you spent working in this, in this work?
Rajkumari (14:38):
I've been doing constellation work since 2006. And then I left Facebook in 2013 and I built this company officially starting Jan one of 2014.
Erin (14:52):
Wow. Okay. So we actually have been in business around the same. Okay. Well happy seven years to you. Hey, that feels, it feels like it's like seven times five. But, okay. So you work with teams now and you do also the one-on-one coaching with executive leaders. Talk about teams. What, what would a team experience when they work with you? What does that look and feel like?
Rajkumari (15:25):
Well, what a great question. It depends on what the team's looking for, if a team wants to. So let me give you an example. So I work with a team of 30 north of 30, 24 30 and they wanted to find their purpose. They were a smaller nonprofit, but they were on the exec team and they were kind of running the show for, I think a larger, 150 or 250 people company and organization, I should say. And they wanted to find really their purpose. And so we started having our discussions and right away, there was so much dysfunction and lack of communication and inability to even listen to each other, that it was very clear to me that that was actually what was stemming all of the issues. And so bringing that up and say, well, if we need to, I with pause on all of the content that we had originally discussed sharing and really do a deep dive into slowing down and learning to bring this cultural cohesion together by listening, by actually inviting other voices by noticing when others aren't speaking up, that, that actual definition, that literal definition of psychological safety to put it into play.
Rajkumari (16:40):
And it was it was a very transforming experience for them. After the, we spent eight weeks together and then they were able to actually now move on to another consultant and do that purpose focused work. So that's one example. Another example is a team that was brought in to do work with an exec team for a startup in Los Angeles. And there was no trust on that team. And that trust had been deteriorating for about two years. And I hadn't had a chance to meet the CEO yet. I hadn't worked with the head of people. And so I had an hour. I'm laughing cause I'm about to tell you what, what what's about to happen here. So I had an hour slotted before this full day of training for the leadership team. And within 10 seconds of saying, Hey, nice to meet you. The CEO asked me straight faced, curious question asked. What's the point of me being nice to my employees?
Erin (17:36):
Oh, oh, oh, oh!
Rajkumari (17:42):
Of course. Your mind starts going. Like you have all these snarky comments on, right?
Erin (17:49):
Let them fly, let them fly. Okay.
Rajkumari (17:51):
What was your answer? And so my answer was after I took a huge deep breath, every single time that you are mean to someone that you interrupt them or dismiss them in some way, you're actually shutting down the parts of their brain that's making you money.
Erin (18:12):
Wow. Okay. I just like, oh no, you go, you go!
Rajkumari (18:21):
You had just gotten 97 million in funding. And so I remember this, like, you know, how time slows when like trauma's happening. Very stressful question, because I was really wondering if this person was serious when they asked the question. Sure. They work. And I came to learn that they were very serious throughout the day. The CEO actually looked down at the floor, took a pause and then looked back, look, backed up, looked back up and then asked very sincerely. So what do I do? And I was like, well, this is not going to, this is not going to come together today.
Erin (19:06):
How, how many years of your life are you going to give me? Okay. Oh my gosh. Okay. So keep going, keep going. Because I know that there's more.
Rajkumari (19:16):
The CEO was even asking me, like after our hour was almost up, you would ask, so can we get trust in next four hours? Like literally asked me this question. That was like, no, we can do some, we can do some impact, but no.
Erin (19:35):
Oh man. Okay. Okay. This there's a lot to unpack here, but also what I love about your answer is not only did you provide, like, here's the solution, but you also put it in the perspective of what you knew that this, your painkillers, so to speak was going to hit a nerve for this CEO, right? Like you're like, this is losing you money. And that's what people don't understand. And that's okay. Rush Perry. We're supposed to meet because this is what improv is also. And I want to get to this place where I get coaching, have so many questions for you, but this is where improv intersects with this, because truly you're talking about our language, which is yes. And we're speaking the same language because you're talking about noticing when people are not speaking up, putting that psychological, psychological safety in place. That is the beauty of, of improv work is we're using yes.
Erin (20:39):
And as a way to postpone judgment or just not judge and allowing every person to be heard and feel and feel value because if they can do that, that is when people want to show up more. When they want to show up more that's when people are more productive, which ultimately when everybody's more productive, everyone wins and the CEO, who's great. He makes money. And the people who actually care about the work that they're doing and the impact they make on the world thrive as well as individuals. So that is, I mean, I have so many questions for you.
Rajkumari (21:14):
Beautifully said, beautifully said. I mean, if we, you know, if we, even, if we would take this improv into the quantum world, right, this is what we call flow and run the flow. Things just happen. Magically. I was at a conference, just a few of those last week. Now I was doing a remote keynote for the next gen summit. And right before I went on, they had these improv dancers and the facilitator, the emcee literally asked them at the end, like none of this was, and they're like, Nope, none of it was rehearsed. That's what happens when that play circuit gets activated in a beautiful way in the, in the appropriate manner. That level of flow, the neurochemistry, which we'll get into the neurochemistry just starts to secrete itself in such an organic way that it just builds on itself. And then you have the bonding chemicals that start happening, the connection and trust that starts building. And it just becomes this book. I'm getting goosebumps talking about.
Erin (22:14):
Yes. Okay. Okay. Okay. I stop right here. I have to ask, okay, I'm going off script, which is an improv. What I do. So let me, I just have, this is what you're telling me right now is when we're in that state, like as an improvisor, when we're using improv as a teaching tool, or when anyone is using improv in there or anything that makes them get in this flow state, Shonda Rhimes calls it the hum, right. You know, whatever it means to you, whatever that word is, flow state there's neurotransmitters that are at their scientific evidence that proves that we are actually in a different quantum space in time. Is that, is that what you're saying? Or explain to me, is this what I'm getting into his place or fit coaching explained to me more about what that means and, and what flow and our, and our chemistry, what happens to that actual chemistry in our brain?
Rajkumari (23:13):
So when we have a sense, let me, let me take a step back here. Let me kind of lay a framework down or a foundation down when we have a sense of trust. So you can, you can read the beautiful article written by Paul's at the neuroscience of trust in the Harvard business review. We have a sense of trust. When we have connection, we have community, we have a sense of vulnerability and transparency. We are automatically secrete oxytocin when we have a sense of purpose at work and we feel autonomy. People are like, they trust us to do our stuff. And so we can do our stuff in an independent way, and we can figure, do our way in a way that will lead to helping the larger picture. When we have a sense of efficiency or effectiveness, we secrete dopamine when we're actually being playful.
Rajkumari (23:57):
The neurochemical for play is endocannabinoids. We have a whole section on our nervous system, the somatic nervous system, that's the endocannabinoid. Now I'm not going to get down this whole industry of marijuana and why this even exists. But when we talk about epigenetics, I'm trying to connect all these different dots for a second here. When we talk about epigenetics, what we're really talking about are the family stories. And me specifically in my coaching, the family stories that hurt the family stories that were exclusive, that excluded others. That's what I'm looking for because when I find those stories from an average genetic lens, that's where the cortisol is. That's where the pain is. That's where the hurt. And when the hurt is there, when the pain is there, when the cortisol is there, there's not a lot of plays for what play joy, spontaneity, connection, love.
Rajkumari (24:58):
If I'm too busy, surviving my grandfather or surviving my parents, whatever it is, right. I'm not going to be like, oh my gosh, let's go do a route of improv. Top of mind is, oh my gosh, I need to be in survival mode because I got excluded in some way. I was shunned. I was told to leave. I was ridiculed because of the way I dress or the person I love, whatever it is. Right. And so when we start to the opposite of belonging is exclusion. And when we have levels of exclusion that are passed down over the generations that have not yet been addressed, we are walking around with bodies of cortisol and shame is the biggest dump of cortisol. That's a direct quote from Sarah Peyton. Who's the author of your resonant self. I think she's incredible. And her work is phenomenal. So for walking around with all of the shame, unbeknownst to ourselves, where's the joy, where's the flow. Where's the trust. Where's the vulnerability. Where's the empathy. Where's the civility. Where is it?
Erin (26:22):
Oh, yes. I mean, this goes hand in hand with hurt. People, hurt people, right? Because they can't find that joy. They can't, this actually has taken me down a road really quickly. I'm just thinking back to my early days as an improviser when I had some, some very just different things happen within one of my teams where I, I felt excluded. I felt ridiculed. I felt as though I should not be there. I did not belong. And I will tell you what to get to a state of play, which is what you do as an improviser, took more effort than I had ever sorted in my life. I couldn't find it. I didn't want to find it. I would not go to rehearsals. I would not show up to things because I didn't, I couldn't find that because it was most likely coming from an epigenetic place. I would assume. I don't know.
Rajkumari (27:25):
And that's what I do. I connect leadership styles to the epigenetic historical archives. That's what I do for a living. And then I shifted, I neurochemically shifted for that person.
Erin (27:39):
How does that work? How do you do that? How do you do that? What is what's? What is that experience like? Tell, tell our audience, tell me I am, you are mind blowing right now.
Rajkumari (27:52):
It is easy, but I'm not going to tell him I was even talking because I gotta charge my client.
Erin (27:59):
Well, no, you're awesome. But what, what what could you expect?
Rajkumari (28:04):
So, so our brains are wired for two things and talk about this all the time. When I give my keynotes on, on understanding humans, we're wired to belong and we're wired to form relationships. That's the crux of who we are as humans. And that becomes very problematic epigenetically. If you know, we had a father that died very early or a grandfather that was in the war, or we had a grandmother who didn't show a lot of emotion and therefore fill our emotion to her daughter. Who's now our mother, right? Like it becomes a compounded issue over time. And so when we look at the, the, the ways in which the brain is rewired, so the brain is wired to belong to form relationships. How does the brain get rewire? It's so easy. The brain is rewired by the relationships that we keep, of course. But by the language that we speak both to ourselves and to others, language is both nonverbal and verbal. So giving someone aside that's language, I mean, I've done it for sure on the subway seriously,
Erin (29:27):
Out of my eyeballs. Yes, it is. I believe at 100, a thousand percent. So you're saying that you rewire the neurochemicals by helping them linguistically use their internal and external.
Rajkumari (29:48):
Let's talk about the signs of that. So Jaak, Panksepp wrote a book called affective neuroscience, and this is actually where my co-conspirator and co-creator syrup, Hayden, who I quoted earlier. And I have brought this work in, in our content together, Jak's work, affective neuroscience looked at how our brain is wired for emotion and motivation. That's his body of work. And he called it the circuits of motivation and emotion. And the left hemisphere is all about our motivation. And that's where the dopamine hits. And that motivation circuit is our get stuff done circuit. That is our problem solving and our build stuff circuit. But the right hemisphere is where all of the emotions, now the issue with this is if we kind of rewind 40 years ago, we remember hearing vaguely. People were saying things like, leave your emotions at the door. Anyone remember this?
Erin (30:49):
Oh yeah. Oh yeah. I sure do. I sure there were signs. There were like the big quote boards that like the lunch room, you know, or like the break room, leave your emotion.
Rajkumari (31:01):
If I'm leaving my emotions at the door, that's my entire right hemisphere.
Erin (31:05):
Yeah. Okay. Leave your right hemisphere at the door should be, bring your right hemisphere with you. That's the new motto we're going to call it
Rajkumari (31:12):
Exactly. When we start to look at what's in the right hemisphere, in terms of the circuitry, what we quickly find are the care circuit, which is all about empathy. We have the play circuit, which is all about creativity and brainstorming and design and innovation. We have the pennant grief circuit. This is all about feedback and awareness ever had an employee who didn't want to take feedback or got super defensive. That's their pennant grief, that's naturally muted or frozen. We have a fear circuit that ensures safety and does risk assessment really well. We have a rage circuit that is so beautiful and being an ally advocating for others, protecting our team and providing air cover. We have a disgust circuit that knows how to delegate hold boundaries and say, you know what I'd love to, but my plate's too full right now. See if so-and-so can take on that project.
Rajkumari (32:14):
And then we have the emergence circuit yuck called it the sexualities, of course, because that's how our brain is wired as humans as animals. But Sarah might have renamed it to the emergent circuit to make it a little more connective back to the workplace. And this is where our growth happens as a human in the workplace. This is our professional development and our personal development. Of course, we have so many perks and ERG ERG groups. That's where our personal self gets held in the workplace. Now let's go to the neurochemicals and specifically the neurochemicals for playing in that play circuit, we are literally hardwired to what play and we are literally wired to be delighted in that play. And when we have those needs of play and delight met, all of a sudden what starts to happen are the emotions of spontaneity, which is exactly what you do. We have the emotions of happiness and the emotions of joy. This is all that, all what you do, Erin.
Erin (33:25):
It is. And I'm, so I'm like kind of getting a little I'm taking notes, listening to you right now. And I'm like, yes, yes. Keep going, keep going. Don't let me stop. Keep going here. Let me ask you this too, please. These are all the right hemisphere circuits, right? You, when you're saying these are the care circuit, the play circuit, the panic reef, these are all a part of that right. Hemisphere.
Rajkumari (33:49):
Yup. And what's really interesting is the right hemisphere connects us to our body. And when we are too busy, focused on problem solving, analyzing, measuring, and comparing a where losing access to our empathy for not taking a breath and moving over to our right. And B the left hemisphere doesn't have a sense of relationship, the right hemisphere, but the left hemisphere doesn't so anytime there's new information, now, I'm going to just very gently say this very softly, social media, anytime there's new information, how the left hemisphere has to process that information is through blame. And guess what blame does it feels so good because it's increased dopamine.
Erin (34:40):
Oh, you are blowing literally my left and right hemisphere. My whole human self is I'm gone. I'm dead. This is my ghost. Hi. okay.
Rajkumari (34:56):
I see. So how we literally get out of blame is too. I mean, there's, it's so simple. Literally take a breath that breath gives you an opportunity to come over to your right hemisphere. And hopefully you have your empathy circuit that care circuit beautifully online, and you can go, wow, that sounds really difficult there, Erin. Right? That's the connection piece versus, well, why did you do it that way?
Erin (35:28):
That's it. And we're wired to connect, like you said, so that's, that's why w oh my God, this play this. Can I ask you this question? This is more, this just came up as, as you were saying these things. So I have a two-year-old right. Two and a half year old, and I watch him all day long, play, play, play, play, play, play, and so imaginative. I mean, some of the things I'm just like, where does this come from? Right. Very verbal, which is shocking to everyone. No one. So is there something different as we get older, that happens to our right hemisphere and our play circuit specifically that we kind of lose that hardwire to be delighted in that play. We lose that emotion of spontaneity, the, that sort of shield. Like I used to call it. I used to say that we wore masks to work prior to 2020, because a lot of people have these masks up as shields or barriers to play, because play means I'm vulnerable play means that I'm not miss Mr. Or Mrs. Or they, or whoever's, you know, I'm coming in today as a robot to transactionally do work. We're losing that connectivity piece. Where is, is there a change that happens as we grow older?
Rajkumari (36:49):
Your question is so important because here's the answer to your question. Our brain is wired for what, again, belonging and the place where good does what play. Right. And all of a sudden we start to grow up and we're looking around and we go, w w wait, people aren't being as playful. Wait, so I need to belong. But in order for me to belong, I can't play. Ah, yeah. Oh, okay. Okay. These are the rules. These are the rules of belonging. Oh, okay. Great. Okay. So I won't feel rejected if I don't play awesome. I will give up playing literally to not feel rejected. This culture fit that nobody wants to use anymore. Culture fit was always about avoiding rejection from the beginning. Like I will fit into your culture so that you don't ridicule me so that I don't feel pain and go home and drink a bottle of tequila when I go home every night.
Erin (37:55):
Yeah. That's it. That is it. Yeah, I mean, you can, you can have a couple of steps or maybe like, okay. You know but I will say this, that is fascinating because you can look at any angle of your own life for anyone can look at any angle of your own life. And I've definitely let go parts of myself. And I'm just speaking personally, to fit in. We've all done it. Right. And then I'll tell you this for free. When I showed up at improv 1 0 1 and walked into class and allowed myself that play, that's when I said, this is it for me, this is, this is where I belong. Because, and within that, like I mentioned, there were other, there were parts, there were times in my improv training where I did feel rejected and I didn't feel like I belonged. And that happens everywhere. Right. But it is, is definitely the, the space that I felt as though I could let myself become characters. I could play. I could connect through those characters. That's why I love it as a teaching tool. That's why I love that you have the actual data and the science and the evidence behind it. All my, I want to talk to you for longer. I could make this a three hour show. I could make this a three hour show.
Erin (39:21):
Whatever you fancy, get comfortable and lay on a couch. No, I, I am truly fascinated by your work. Let me ask you this. What's one of the coolest transformations that you've experienced, and I know you can't name names or teams, but what's one of the coolest transformations you've witnessed when working with a team who's doing this type of play circuit coaching that you do?
Rajkumari (39:48):
That, that is really a difficult question. What I will say is that I hold these 12 week biology of belonging, boot camps, and I hold them within tech companies. And I was really blown away in the last few months that people who we, we had just completed one of the bootcamps for one of the companies. And I'm a, I'm a con I'm constantly on LinkedIn. And I started seeing people post testimonials, unsolicited. I didn't unbeknownst to me even, it was just coming up as a notification that was mentioned in a post right on LinkedIn. And the, and you can still see these, these, these posts that the bootcamp was changing their lunch.
Erin (40:35):
That's cool. And you know what, you know, that's the best unsolicited feedback that is positive and sharing is like, you've touched, you've touched lives. You're helping change and touch lives.
Rajkumari (40:47):
You know? And I was, I was talking to one of my mentors and I was like, this is so hard for me to, I did not, I did not change their lives. They changed when she said yes, but you offered them a key. Of course, they picked up the key. They unlock themselves. They don't all the work. Yes. But you offered them the key. And I was like, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, that's it. And I think the, the, the, the content for me is literally a bunch of keys for you for all of you to, to pick up whatever feels resonant and not all keys are resonant at all times. Sometimes you got to unlock this door. Sometimes you got to unlock this window. Whatever, wherever you are in that moment, whatever resonates, whatever it is that you're being to work on in your own journey of life. That's the key right there.
Erin (41:38):
Oh my God. I want to go to this boot camp right now. I am in this moment. I mean, this is cool. And I don't like to, I don't like to give this podcast a bad rating, this cool. Okay. This is just cool. This is literally fascinating work. It's transformative. As you can hear through the testimonials, I, like I said, I can make this a three hour show, but I want to, I want to have a little bit of fun, which was, are you you? And I like to set a little goal. I set a goal before we do the show with the guests. And you said you wanted to have fun. So I want to, I want to have a little bit of improv in here for you. Okay. Let's do it. All right. And so there's a game I love called new choice.
Erin (42:20):
It's a tried and true improv games. So here's what I want to do. Okay. I want you to tell us about epigenetic play circuits. Okay. I want you to talk about team culture, the neurobiology of team culture and epigenetic place, circuit coaching. And as you're talking about it at certain points, I'm going to say new choice. Okay. And when I say that, I'll say something like new word, new phrase, new location, new, whatever it is. And you're just right in that moment, going to have to change the word and keep going from the word that you changed it to. Does that make sense? So, if I was saying today, I ate a sandwich and you, and you, and I said, a new type of food today. I ate a pear. I love pears pears, or, you know, and then I would just,
Rajkumari (43:02):
It's going to be awesome, but it's going to be awesome.
Erin (43:05):
Exactly. Exactly. And it's plate we're, we're, we're on our right hemisphere. We're having fun. Let's do it. Okay. So, all right. Tell me about the work that you do.
Rajkumari (43:15):
So I'm an executive coach and I work in the world of epigenetics and it's a really bizarre science that has lots of books written about it. Daniel Siegel is the neurobiology person who
Erin (43:32):
New author new author.
Rajkumari (43:35):
The woman who wrote the, the danger of a single story. I can't remember her name. She has a Ted talk. She's awesome. Anyway, Ted talks, I want to have a Ted talk one day
Erin (43:49):
New type of talk, new type of talk.
Rajkumari (43:52):
I want to present my entire understanding humans at work singing. I want to sing the whole thing
Erin (44:02):
New type of way to present it.
Rajkumari (44:04):
I want to do, I'm sending humans with charades.
Erin (44:29):
Okay. You nailed that new choice, a little short, little short blip into our play circuit. Okay. That right. Hemisphere was lit up. I loved that and I, I truly just am amazed at the way you inject humor into the work that you do. It's, it's fascinating. You're such a, from what I've seen and Googled you're a fantastic facilitator and it's, as you said, you've got the testimonials to prove it. And I want to ask you this last question. So we say that add, improve it, your, it, it can mean so many different things to so many people, but it's really your, it is that thing that you feel like you're put here to do. So what would you say is your,
Rajkumari (45:21):
Yeah,
Erin (45:24):
We need to get some keys that you can just pass out at, like your in person events become a, a real thing. Again, you need to be given out keys. We need some, we need key chains, all the things. Do we have keys yet? Rajkumari do we have keys?
Rajkumari (45:39):
I love it. I need to play that clip in the matrix with the key maker, you know,
Erin (45:45):
Coming up with some ideas here today. So, okay. Well tell our audience too. How can they find you if they want to learn more about you and your fascinating work, tell them where they can find you.
Rajkumari (45:57):
Absolutely. So of course, you can go to RajkumariNeogy.com. That's my executive coaching website. I am building a new website. It's called Ibelong.com. There's just a landing page currently available. It will eventually house all of the content in a self paced format to learn more about the biology of belonging or anything else that I've mentioned, including understanding humans at work, go on over to, I belong dot comments, sign up for our next newsletter, which has not even started yet. So I don't know where we're going to launch the company, but whenever we do, you'll be the first to know.
Erin (46:30):
Yes. All right. We're going to link up to all that in the show notes and just thank you for being so fascinating and reminding us that play needs a right hemisphere needs to be activated every day. That's where it is. Okay. And I am just honored, thrilled to have you now as a colleague and a friend, this isn't ending here, you're going to hear from me again. I want you to know that. So thank you for being a part of this show. Thanks for, for talking with our audience. We appreciate you Rajkumari.
Rajkumari (47:03):
Likewise, thank you so much for having me
Erin (47:12):
Improve it! Fam. I don't know about you, but my left and right hemisphere are just blown away by this conversation. So many interesting tips and scientific evidence that backs the research that we do here at improve it using improv to train you, to be your best self is activating that play circuit. So what I want you to take away from today's show is this. I want you to ask yourself this question. Am I allowing myself to engage in play? Am I allowing my team to feel like they can belong here? And am I allowing myself to really drop this hypothetical mask that I wore to work before and engage in play? Am I engaging in play every single day? That's what I want you to ask yourself and write that question down. Am I engaging in my play circuit today? My using my play circuit today, make that a goal for the next week and see if that transforms the way that you show up at work, the way you show up for your team and the way you show up for yourself. I'm so grateful for this conversation. I love this. I love this show because we talked to the coolest people in Rajkumari is cool.
Erin (48:36):
Thank you so much improve it! Fam for showing up here. Week after week, keep failing, keep improving because the world needs, needs that special ed that only you can bring. See ya next time. Hey friends, thanks for tuning in to improve it. I am so happy you were along for the ride. If you enjoyed this show, head on over to iTunes to leave us a five star review and subscribe to the show. So you never miss an episode. New episodes drop every Wednesday. Now, if you're really feeling today's show and you've improved it even just a little bit, please take a screenshot and tag me at keeping it real deal on Instagram and share it in your stories. I'll see you next week, but I want to leave you with this thought, what did you improve today and how will that help your future successful self sync about it? I am rooting for you and the world needs that special. It only you can bring see you next time.