Diana Alt [00:00:01]:
Hey there, everybody, and welcome to Work Should Feel Good. The show where your career growth meets your real life. I'm your host, Diana Alt, and Today my guest Dr. Kedem Hamdan and I are going to talk about why success on the outside doesn't always match how you feel on the inside and the other sneaky things our brain does to us that aren't always very nice. Dr. Hamdan or Kedem Kedem is a brain health expert and licensed therapist, helping high functioning people finally understand why they do what they do. She was educated at Harvard and Columbia and blends neuroscience, psychology and cutting edge brain tools to turn mental health into something you can actually see, measure and change. Her approach is direct, insightful, and a little bit disruptive.

Diana Alt [00:00:47]:
Helping leaders and professionals stop overthinking, break patterns, and step into real confidence, clarity and alignment. Welcome to the show.

Dr. Ketam Hamdan [00:00:57]:
Thank you.

Diana Alt [00:00:57]:
So glad to have you. I think that, I think that I, you know, my audience, you know, you and I don't know each other well. I have a lot of people that I've worked with, but we kind of met via a weird email chain along the way and I said, oh, I need to know about this neuroscience and psychology thing because I work with a lot of really analytical people. Most of the clients that I serve or the audience that I have are people that have been in corporate roles. They're highly educated, not necessarily doctorates, but most of them have masters and they've worked in the tech industry or product management or things like that. And so they kind of like to geek out about stuff like this. So I'm really interested. When I was researching for this show, you talk about this notion of the inner AI, our hidden kind of our hidden wiring.

Diana Alt [00:01:47]:
And I want to hear a little bit about that and how you got interested in this aspect because. Because most people don't think about this when they think about someone that's a licensed therapist.

Dr. Ketam Hamdan [00:01:57]:
Yeah, well, and actually for me, that becoming a therapist was a change of career. I was actually even better.

Diana Alt [00:02:03]:
Let's go there. Let's talk about that first, then we can get into the rest.

Dr. Ketam Hamdan [00:02:06]:
So I was an undergrad. I wasn't really sure what I wanted to do with my life, but I was like in the honors program and all these smart kids were going through these rounds of interviews and for consulting and they weren't making it. So long story short, I went through that round and ended up making it and became a consultant working for one of these fancy consulting companies that everybody dreams of. And yeah, I actually hated the person I became Oh, I hear that.

Diana Alt [00:02:33]:
Did you study business, finance, technology? Like what did you.

Dr. Ketam Hamdan [00:02:36]:
Yeah, finance. But I mean, the group that I was with, you know, they tend to take people from different backgrounds and then, you know, put you in a room for eight weeks to get together and brainwash you to speak their language.

Diana Alt [00:02:45]:
Same thing. I did the exact same thing at the beginning of my career. Yeah.

Dr. Ketam Hamdan [00:02:49]:
And then I learned how to code. And you were, you know, because you're working with clients and you need to be able to do everything from the grunt work. So, you know, here I was working 18 hour days, long nights, coding this and that. But then, you know, after four or five years, I'm like, there's got to be more to life than this. I really felt like when I went to work, I would leave my soul at the door. At the door. And I'm like, there's got to be more to this. Like how? You know, and I remember one, I think it was a manager and I literally made someone cry and I was like shocked because like, that's not who I want to be.

Dr. Ketam Hamdan [00:03:24]:
Yeah. You know, and I'm like, I'm not here to like, you know, like I have a very spiritual side to me of like wanting to kind of also make people's lives better and give back etc, and not just be a baby in the corporate world. I feel like that the corporate world made me that.

Diana Alt [00:03:38]:
Yeah.

Dr. Ketam Hamdan [00:03:39]:
And I was like, okay, I gotta like figure out who I am. And so I started going to therapy and I was very frustrated by the process because I reduced it to either I was stupid and couldn't apply because nothing was like I would short term band aid fixes. You talk about things, feel short term better. But then I'm like, yeah, this is not working either. So I've just set out on a personal hunt to kind of figure out my internal world. And a big thing is that I hear this with a lot of my clients. It's like they know, they say I know what I need to do, I just can't do it.

Diana Alt [00:04:12]:
And that if I had a dollar, you know, and I work with people I work with, my coaching practice basically serves kind of multiple stages of career for that same like senior IC to like vp, you know, high impact person. Not necessarily C suite, but I work with them on career changes, job searches, and just like their overall career and leadership development or what I call like the other 90 or 95% of your career when you're not trying to actively switch jobs. And I hear this all the time because like, I know I should network, but I don't. I know I should do X, Y and Z, but I don't. I can't get myself to do it. And I don't have this. That's one of the reasons why I wanted to talk to you, because I'm looking at it from, like, this brass tax. I lived this perspective because I was in corporate, in tech, and then moved into coaching.

Diana Alt [00:05:04]:
And you come at it from this academic and clinical perspective, and it's just fascinating. So.

Dr. Ketam Hamdan [00:05:11]:
And it's a personal journey that literally be. You know, the inner journey becomes an outer journey.

Diana Alt [00:05:16]:
Right.

Dr. Ketam Hamdan [00:05:17]:
I struggle. Would you learn this? I'm like, I was privileged. I went to the best institutions in the world. I've had some of the best mentors and best leaders. And I'm like, I'm sorry, you don't need to have this pedigree of degrees and mentors and access and shouldn't take two decades to figure yourself out. And nor do you need to go to all these fancy places to do it. In fact, I feel like they gave me a good platform, but a lot of this stuff was learning outside of these institutions because the traditional model is still what's taught in most of these institutions.

Diana Alt [00:05:44]:
Yeah. The best practice. Everybody gets addicted to best practice. And, you know, I think there's. I think it's good for people to learn best practices for whatever their domain is. But then also recognize the best practices, by definition, are almost by definition, they become out of date. They may already be out of date by the time you learn them. So.

Diana Alt [00:06:06]:
So when you decided to make the pivot away from consulting, did you immediately land on becoming a therapist? Did you kind of explore some other things?

Dr. Ketam Hamdan [00:06:17]:
A mentor was more like, I don't know, conscious consciousness and, like, conscious development. So I started going more into coaching, more in helping people kind of understand, like, who they are, what they wanted for themselves. But then it still landed on this constant problem of, I know what I need to do. I just can't do it.

Diana Alt [00:06:32]:
Yeah.

Dr. Ketam Hamdan [00:06:33]:
And it was the. The clear distinction between almost like your head was physically here, but your body's over here.

Diana Alt [00:06:39]:
Yeah.

Dr. Ketam Hamdan [00:06:39]:
Then I became curious, like, what's that all about? And then I realized, you know, the world of psychology. Then I realized, okay, I need to go understand psychology to kind of understand a bit more about the mind, body connection. But I was frustrated because most of psychology focuses a lot more on the above. The next stuff. Yeah. Your thoughts. Very little is about the full. The whole person, you know.

Diana Alt [00:07:00]:
Yeah. There's also the aspect that people get so addicted to the methodologies that they learn especially early in their career that, like, basically they. They're a hammer that thinks everything is a nail. I remember I had. I had therapists. I lost my husband in 2009 when I was very young, and I went to therapy. Like, I waited like a year, year and a half, like, before I could even think about it. And then I went to therapy and it was okay.

Diana Alt [00:07:28]:
I would describe it as okay. And then I did that for a couple, three years, off and on, and stopped for a long time. And in 2020, I found a different therapist at the recommendation of a friend. It was an entirely different experience. And when he dug into what I had done before, he's like, they were trying to treat grief and major depressive disorder with cbt, which is not really indicated. You had. You had a psychologist for whom they thought you were a nail. And it was mind blowing.

Diana Alt [00:08:02]:
So I didn't know. I didn't know anything. I didn't study psychology.

Dr. Ketam Hamdan [00:08:06]:
So most therapists don't even know.

Diana Alt [00:08:08]:
Well, this, this person had. Was very interesting. And he also had a PhD in counseling psychology and had studied at the PhD level in environmental science, and he studied the psychophysiological endocrine disorders. And it was because of him telling me, we need to explore whether there's physical reasons for certain mental health things that I was happening that I found out I had Hashimoto's PCOS and a brain tumor. Right. Yeah. And then it's very important. So I love that you're like, the more you.

Diana Alt [00:08:49]:
The more people can think about mind, body, the better. Because, I mean, there's like, you know,

Dr. Ketam Hamdan [00:08:53]:
I'm sure you've heard of Wayne Dyer. Yeah. You know, there's Louise Hayes. She wrote a book that, you know, the body. I mean, you can heal your body. She would link every physical ailment to a psychological issue.

Diana Alt [00:09:06]:
I haven't read that one. It sounds like a good one way, but.

Dr. Ketam Hamdan [00:09:09]:
Yeah, it's good because, like, talks about, like, lower back pain. Right. Money problems, knee pain, fear of moving forward. So every, you know, and so you start connecting the dots of like, just kind of help understanding that, oh, maybe I should. You know, there's something more to it than just knee pain. And that's the whole. The body keeps the score. Right.

Dr. Ketam Hamdan [00:09:28]:
The body's constantly storing these emotions, and we're never processing or doing anything with them. We're just dismissing them or hoping that they go away and they don't. They get louder and louder.

Diana Alt [00:09:38]:
Yes. Um, and one of the Things I'm not sure about what your client base is like, but mine, it's. They're very academic. Even if they work out, they're working out a lot of times because they should. And they aren't necessarily connecting their mind and their body. Like it's very possible to work out without ever connecting your mind and your body. I know I've done it, but it's super interesting because the way I have expressed it to people sometimes is I feel like I've never lived in my body. Like they're amazing.

Diana Alt [00:10:11]:
There was many years of my life that I feel like I live in my head. I live from the neck up and then people want to treat from the neck up. And it's easy to ignore from the neck down when your profession is from the neck up. So very. Is that similar, is that a similar profile to a lot of the people that you work with?

Dr. Ketam Hamdan [00:10:27]:
I mean, I work two worlds. I have, you know, I gotta feed my pocket, be my soul. Where I work with a lot of high profile individuals and then I also volunteer at a non profit for domestic violence. Oh, it's, it's fascinating because while it looks like two different worlds, humans are humans. Trauma is trauma. It will it show. You know, you can wear a suit and it might not. It might be more disguised because of the outward appearance, but in your body language and your behavior, if you're a trained professional, you can see it.

Dr. Ketam Hamdan [00:10:56]:
You don't need to be, you know, homeless or on the streets just to feel like to show trauma. You can hide it better.

Diana Alt [00:11:02]:
Yeah, it's easier. You can scrub yourself up and mask better when you have resources to scrub yourself up and mask better. But yeah, that is so interesting. So you decided to move into the world of psychology. You decided to move into really understanding not just the same old, same old traditional methods. What are some of the first things that you learned that were a little outside the norm that most people might have experienced with a therapist that were like, oh, aha, I'm on a path here. I'm on a path, really help people.

Dr. Ketam Hamdan [00:11:39]:
Well, and I. It all starts with me. I mean like, you know, those pivotal transformative moments in your life. One of them was for class. It was a class called Creativity and Personal Mastery.

Diana Alt [00:11:50]:
Oh,

Dr. Ketam Hamdan [00:11:53]:
it's literally, it's probably one of the, the only classes at Columbia that has a, has an alumni group. Wow, Professor Ralph, you can get a hold of him. Phenomenal guy. And in that class for one week and he had students from like the law school, the med school, the business School and for one week you had to go around treating people as if it was their last day on earth. And I remember walking. Yeah, and I remember walking to school and because I have an assignment and I'm an A student. Right. I gotta get an A, gotta get.

Dr. Ketam Hamdan [00:12:26]:
I'm walking by this homeless lady and I said hello to her and she was ah, the girl in the pink scarf. You finally noticed me. And I was like my, I literally teared and I'm like, holy smokes. Like I've been walking for months past. This lady did never notice her, Noticed

Diana Alt [00:12:45]:
her or never spoke to her even if you did notice her.

Dr. Ketam Hamdan [00:12:48]:
And that was to me like, you know, a consciousness like where it's like why did I need to go to an Ivy League school? Be given an assignment to learn to live life to be more present?

Diana Alt [00:12:58]:
Yes.

Dr. Ketam Hamdan [00:12:59]:
Because healing is all about presence. We're not present. Mental health, you know, if you're, if you're depressed, you're not present. If you're anxious, you're not present. You know, people tell you chemical, some people do have chemical. But by and large most of us are stuck on our head because we're self protecting.

Diana Alt [00:13:15]:
We're either paying attention to the past or we're paying attention to the future. That's how I've heard it put. Most people that have anxiety are paying attention to worrying about the future. People depression are sad about the past. That's a very surface level description, but that's how I've heard it explained.

Dr. Ketam Hamdan [00:13:35]:
And the term inner AI came about is because we have a hidden code that we're not choosing this. Right. Our brains by nature are designed to keep us safe. They're not designed to keep us happy. There's a big distinction. So if our brain is designed to keep us safe, it is constantly on high alert to self protect and depending on our life experiences and how it decided to navigate. So if you were a kid, you know, learning to stay quiet and hold it all in becomes your default brain state. Right.

Dr. Ketam Hamdan [00:14:07]:
That might lead to more depressive episodes. Y. If you tended to kind of take on action, to kind of keep yourself busy so, so you don't have to worry about things, you might take on more of an anxiety, you know, an anxious pattern. So that pattern becomes habitual based on early life childhood experiences. Not by choice. You know, that's the thing. It becomes an automatic hardwiring that we've never chose for ourself. Our brain just decided.

Dr. Ketam Hamdan [00:14:32]:
Because you had to survive.

Diana Alt [00:14:34]:
Yeah. As no child thinks. Hm. I think I will stuff all my emotions down so that 30 years from now I can have major depressive disorder and anxiety. No one does that. They think, I just want my mom to not be mad at me.

Dr. Ketam Hamdan [00:14:49]:
Yes.

Diana Alt [00:14:50]:
I just want my mom to. I don't want to bother people when they're busy with other things. I don't want to be a bother. That kind of stuff. So that resonates a lot. Whenever I was working with my thera, I worked with my favorite therapist solidly for three years, and he trotted out a methodology that worked very well for me and that you don't hear about transaction analysis. And so he was. He was constantly like, okay, draw the picture of the little snowman.

Diana Alt [00:15:22]:
That's the visual that he used. Where are you at? What is going on? Where is this person at? And I'm analytical enough that it was really helpful to me to realize, oh, I'm a hurt child right now.

Dr. Ketam Hamdan [00:15:32]:
I love it.

Diana Alt [00:15:33]:
I'm a hurt child right now. And I feel like so. And so is speaking to me like an angry parent or I'm acting like an angry parent, and I'm doing the same thing. World changing. So. Especially because you can draw it on a piece of paper and explain it to somebody that doesn't have tons of education. Yeah.

Dr. Ketam Hamdan [00:15:53]:
You don't need to. I mean, you know, humans are humans. It's.

Diana Alt [00:15:55]:
Yeah.

Dr. Ketam Hamdan [00:15:56]:
We don't need the sophisticated language to simplify some of these. Like, even something like, you know, treating people or last year. It doesn't need. It's. It's a human. It's a human thing. It's like teaching how to be human and go back to, you know, was

Diana Alt [00:16:09]:
it like, it's your last day on Earth or like, their last day on Earth day? Okay, I misheard you at first. So what are some of the things that you did when you were treating people like it was their last day on Earth?

Dr. Ketam Hamdan [00:16:22]:
Kindness, you know, noticing who they are, you know, offering them something to drink, getting, you know, paying for their lunch. You, you know, carrying things for them. In this particular case. And that lady was just, you know, saying hello to her. And then I literally gave her money so she'd go buy something to eat. And then on the way back, I brought her a sandwich that I picked up at the store. So it's just like, you just tend to kind of give more.

Diana Alt [00:16:44]:
Yeah.

Dr. Ketam Hamdan [00:16:45]:
More about selfless acts and just being more attentive to the other.

Diana Alt [00:16:48]:
Yeah.

Dr. Ketam Hamdan [00:16:49]:
And that was transformative because even when I started becoming a therapist, I actually started doing some of these exercises with people Because I really feel that we're so wrapped up in our world that sometimes we need to kind of. We need that yank of like now. Is it going to heal their issues? No, but it's. I think it's just about perspective, about getting them just to be a bit more present.

Diana Alt [00:17:09]:
Do you remember in seventh grade, like that kind of age range when you were utterly convinced that everyone was paying attention if you wore a weird outfit to school or your hair looked wrong? I remember that distinct. So I latched onto that age because it was one of the first times that someone said to me, people are not paying attention to you because they're worried that everybody else is paying attention to them. Like, chill out. We're all. No matter whether we're still 12 years old or whether we're 51 years old, like me, we're all still a little bit like that, especially if we haven't done work on it. So. So how did you develop this inner AI model for yourself? And how does that, how does that, how does somebody that's just listening to this podcast think about that?

Dr. Ketam Hamdan [00:18:03]:
So, I mean, the Internet model really was. I was, I did a Harvard thought leadership alumni course and I had to write article. Right. And so, you know, it was right when AI started kind of booming then I was like, everyone's so obsessed about AI, but we each have our own inner, you know, artificial intelligence, adaptive intelligence taken on its own world and we don't even understand it.

Diana Alt [00:18:25]:
Oh, and I love this AI in your model. Is AI supposed to be adaptive intelligence instead of artificial intelligence? Okay, pay attention to that, guys. It's not, it's not. Claude, it is yourself. It is adaptability, which I have said over and over that wisdom and adaptability are the top two things that we need more of right now because knowledge has become cheap.

Dr. Ketam Hamdan [00:18:48]:
So supposed to mirror our biological systems. What happens to a tree if it doesn't adjust to the. The weather outside?

Diana Alt [00:18:56]:
You will have a dead tree.

Dr. Ketam Hamdan [00:18:57]:
Yes. If a river is flowing and it reach. It hits a bedrock, what happens to that river? It's supposed to adapt, go around.

Diana Alt [00:19:04]:
Yes. The whole Grand Canyon is because of this.

Dr. Ketam Hamdan [00:19:07]:
So as humans, we are supposed to mirror those biological system. What keeps, what creates the demise of people is the lack of adaptation.

Diana Alt [00:19:15]:
Yes.

Dr. Ketam Hamdan [00:19:16]:
You know, because people get stuck on wanting things to be a certain way and if they're not that way or trying to control it and, and it literally creates a whole mental health issues because of that.

Diana Alt [00:19:27]:
I started about six or seven years ago, kind of casually, casually studying the stoics Maybe a little longer than that. And I swear that saved my life because one of the top principles of stoicism is that you focus on what you can control and stop worrying about the rest. And oh, by the way, that list of what you can control is really fun. Freaking short. It is you and what's inside your brain you can't even control. The most mind blowing thing for me was you can't even control your body because your body, like, you can have cancer anytime. You can get a cold, you can, you know, get a disease, and you can't control that, but you can control how you think, think of it. And you can influence things, but you cannot make things happen.

Diana Alt [00:20:10]:
And that resonated a lot with me. So.

Dr. Ketam Hamdan [00:20:14]:
And the, the other two thing of transformative modes, number two was, I think it was 28 when I learned your thoughts are not facts.

Diana Alt [00:20:23]:
Right?

Dr. Ketam Hamdan [00:20:24]:
And I'm like, oh my God, what does that mean? And then I was like, what do you mean they're not facts? I'm like, but nobody teaches you that. Hey, just because you think something doesn't mean it's true. And yet we give them, we take them on as if they are true, and then it becomes our reality, right? Recognizing like, oh, you know, looking at yourself and being like, just whatever, like, oh, I'm not ugly or I'm not good enough. Like, we just assume it's true. And we never take court and kind of say, like, no, what's my evidence for this? What's my evidence against this?

Diana Alt [00:20:52]:
Says who? Is how? You know, one way to say is, what's your evidence? The other is like, who Says who? Good enough for what? Is what I say a lot good

Dr. Ketam Hamdan [00:21:00]:
enough based on whose guidelines?

Diana Alt [00:21:03]:
Yeah, yeah, in. In the language that I talk to people about. Sometimes it's like, I'm not good enough to climb the ladder. And I'm like, do you even. Number one, do you even want to do that? And number two is a ladder you're trying to climb even propped up against the right wall.

Dr. Ketam Hamdan [00:21:18]:
True.

Diana Alt [00:21:19]:
Because if it's not, then like, what the hell are you doing? What are we doing? Why can't we figure out what we actually want to do? So, but yeah, feelings are not facts. That is. Or thoughts are not facts is another one. What else was transformative for you?

Dr. Ketam Hamdan [00:21:35]:
There's so many. I mean, I think the, the mind body connection probably is the most critical. Right. Is about, like Bessel Vander clock's work. You know, how emotions are stored in the body and unexpressed emotions will always come out in ugly ways that.

Diana Alt [00:21:50]:
Oh, my God, yes.

Dr. Ketam Hamdan [00:21:51]:
You know, like I. And I remember, like, I started doing couples work in the beginning. And I remember this is. This was like 10 years ago where I had. Who's like a CEO of a company. He just came in, he's like, she. All I wanted from her was a Diet Coke. That's it, a Diet Coke.

Dr. Ketam Hamdan [00:22:05]:
And I'm like, what the hell is this about? You know? So it was interesting. Diet Coke driving home. And I. And she asked if I wanted anything. And I just said, hey, can you stop and get some Diet Coke for me? Like, from the store or whatever. Real quick, on your way. And when she got home, guess what? What do you think happened when she walked in, forgot the Diet Coke, and he lost his. Yeah.

Dr. Ketam Hamdan [00:22:24]:
And she's like, see how he makes a big deal out of everything, how he's unforgiving. And then I looked at her and I said, what are you upset about? He said, what? He's the one that's upset. And she goes, no. And I said to her, what are you upset about? She's like, nothing. And I'm like, what are you annoyed with him about? And she's like, oh. She's like, actually, well, he's. He's taking. He's going on a boys trip to Vegas.

Dr. Ketam Hamdan [00:22:49]:
And I. He asked me if I was okay with it, and I said yes. She goes, but I'm not. So it's like they're called microaggressions. How. You know, where she basically. And she didn't kind of. She didn't do it consciously.

Dr. Ketam Hamdan [00:23:01]:
That's where it's like the body keeps. You know. You know, so it's like you might not express it, but you will act out.

Diana Alt [00:23:07]:
Yeah. What you.

Dr. Ketam Hamdan [00:23:08]:
Your disappointment or.

Diana Alt [00:23:09]:
Yeah.

Dr. Ketam Hamdan [00:23:09]:
You don't agree in a very immature way.

Diana Alt [00:23:12]:
I think that the statement that you made earlier about when you were in consulting is incredibly powerful because it relates exactly to this. And that is when you said, I don't like something. Like, I don't like who I was becoming when you were in consulting. And I've been in that situation too, where sometimes you, like in my. In my. There's two jobs in particular that I'm thinking of, and one of them was the very last one that I had in corporate. And, you know, I had fault for that not being good. And there's a.

Diana Alt [00:23:42]:
Plenty of fault with other leaders that I worked with as well. But when you just will snap at someone or do something and go, God, what the hell? What am I even. What Am I even doing? You immediately know that you've made a jackass out of yourself. But we also have been taught so many messages about strength and not showing weakness that it's hard to apologize.

Dr. Ketam Hamdan [00:24:06]:
True. Yeah.

Diana Alt [00:24:07]:
So that you can recover from that.

Dr. Ketam Hamdan [00:24:09]:
Her, she's like, you know, she tried to be like the good wife that wasn't jealous and just, yeah, go ahead, do whatever you want. Strong. And. And it will come out even subtle ways, even with colleagues. Right. If you're upset about something about work, instead of having conversation with that person, you might do something kind of like show up late to a meeting. And, you know, it's. It's immature, but it's socially acceptable because more silent.

Diana Alt [00:24:31]:
Yeah.

Dr. Ketam Hamdan [00:24:31]:
So avoid the confrontation. And actually, one of the things, if I had to say, I. I have learned a lot of work now talks about. About emotional regulation, of learning to manage your emotions, but I actually just did

Diana Alt [00:24:41]:
a whole episode where we talked so much about that yesterday, so.

Dr. Ketam Hamdan [00:24:44]:
Well, and what I've learned, though, is actually before you can get to emotion, emotional regulation, actually, the. The step before that is actually distress tolerance, learning how to tolerate these uncomfortable emotions. We're asking people to regulate something, but they can't even tolerate them. So, girl, before you actually regulate, you got to allow yourself to.

Diana Alt [00:25:05]:
There's. That. There's also kind of. I don't know that this is like a related, but not somewhere along the line, a lot of people got the idea that any sort of discomfort was persecution.

Dr. Ketam Hamdan [00:25:20]:
Yes.

Diana Alt [00:25:21]:
So we can't talk. We can't tolerate emotional distress because we think that the emotional distress is because someone persecuted us, when really it's like, it's not the world's. Like, there are legit people being persecuted, but the person. The person that's like, I don't know that I agree with your religion or you and I don't see eye to eye on politics or. I want to go on the golf trip, and you wish that I wouldn't go on the golf trip. Like, none of that is persecution. That is a difference of opinion. And, you know, in most cases, I mean, there's outliers, of course, but the.

Diana Alt [00:25:55]:
There's no right to not be offended.

Dr. Ketam Hamdan [00:25:59]:
Well, I think society has programmed us. Negative emotions are bad. Get rid of them.

Diana Alt [00:26:03]:
Yes.

Dr. Ketam Hamdan [00:26:04]:
You know, don't get angry. Don't be sad. Be strong, tough up. So any and any resemblance of that is run. You know, get rid of it.

Diana Alt [00:26:15]:
I. I think that I. I am. I don't know if you are versed in the Enneagram at all. But I've gotten kind of interested in it. And I'm an eight.

Dr. Ketam Hamdan [00:26:26]:
Okay.

Diana Alt [00:26:26]:
And I was an. I'm an eight that's grew up in a family of like, the rest of my family isn't into it, but if I had to guess, my parents were both. My dad was probably a nine or a one. My mom is probably a one with a two wing and so is my younger brother. My older brother is five, like a hard five. And so I am very definitely black sheep vibes because I go towards anger. But I was in a family with people where you did your duty. So when I would, I would stuff it.

Diana Alt [00:26:59]:
And then whenever I really blew up, like, it was epic. It was absolutely epic. Because negative emotions, we just do our work. We just do our work. It was really hard. And I didn't know until I was. I didn't know this stuff till I was 45. Like, what would my life be like if I had understood that most anger can be processed in 90 to 120 seconds if you let it happen.

Dr. Ketam Hamdan [00:27:24]:
But we're, we're never taught that.

Diana Alt [00:27:27]:
No, we're not, we're not. I try to teach it to people now. Like, I'm not a therapist, but please go talk to your therapist about this or read about this or whatever. I'm very conscious sometimes the best people

Dr. Ketam Hamdan [00:27:38]:
that are teaching it are not therapists or people that have found these alternate, you know, wow.

Diana Alt [00:27:42]:
I don't wanna, I don't wanna delve into areas that I am not qualified for, but I think saying that processing some anger is not always bad is pretty universal. It's like saying, you, you don't need to be a dietitian to tell somebody to eat vegetables.

Dr. Ketam Hamdan [00:27:56]:
But I mean, what we're finding is I think people are too busy thinking of healing as like, you know, go to a therapist and healing is multifaceted. There are many things. Right, great point. Like, doctor talks about, like, he's like saying, you know, what is it? Drama? If you think about in order to be an actor or doing any type of drama, the mind and the body have to be connected. And they are finding far more effective healing being done through someone going to a theater class and learning taking some type of drama course that forces them to kind of reconnect with themselves because you can't act if you're frozen and still kind of containing it in. You're not going to do a very good job with that in that role.

Diana Alt [00:28:41]:
That's right. Because there's that whole program that they talk about in the Body keeps the soul score. I got some benefit for that from doing improv.

Dr. Ketam Hamdan [00:28:47]:
Yes.

Diana Alt [00:28:48]:
So I never wanted to, like, commit to being in a community theater play. I don't even. I'm not really an actor. I don't even know if I would have gotten cast. But I did take a couple of. Just like, here's 25 bucks. Go to the improv class. And it was.

Diana Alt [00:29:00]:
That was one of the times when I was conscious that I was not in my body. Like, oh, you're making me use my body in this class. Right out the gate, one minute after that thing starts. And it was very different for me, so. Because I'm such a brain person. So let's think about. Let's think for a second about you. Talk.

Diana Alt [00:29:20]:
We started this episode off talking about, like, the. The success on the outside not matching the inside. And so how does this show up for people? And how did you know? Clearly, you have services and things that you do with people, but if they're just Joe Schmo in the middle of Mid America and they're thinking, wow, this might be a thing, how can they recognize that this is actually what's going on? And what are some things that they can do?

Dr. Ketam Hamdan [00:29:51]:
Well, you know, we complicate healing and understanding ourselves far more than we need to. And the simple quote that I should and I ask people is that, you know, when's the last time you felt joy? We are supposed to mirror children in terms of. Children up until the age of about six or seven are alive. They're fully present. You know, play is real work to them. You know, they're smiling, they're happy, they have a variety of emotions.

Diana Alt [00:30:21]:
Yes.

Dr. Ketam Hamdan [00:30:23]:
If we don't have any resemblance of a variety of emotions or feeling any type of joy within a week, that's usually a barometer. Something's off. Yeah.

Diana Alt [00:30:34]:
Yeah.

Dr. Ketam Hamdan [00:30:34]:
And I find with a lot of working professionals, they're so desensitized and numb that they just become, like, going. They're experiencing, like, going through the motions, doing all the things, but never really experiencing joy.

Diana Alt [00:30:48]:
Okay.

Dr. Ketam Hamdan [00:30:48]:
And, you know, to the point where people forgot what. Forget what it even feels like.

Diana Alt [00:30:53]:
Yeah. I was just gonna say, how many people don't even know what that's like? Or they scoff at the idea of

Dr. Ketam Hamdan [00:30:58]:
joy, like, as if it's, like, a bad thing. Like. And I tell them it's like, when's the last time you. You had, like, a belly laugh? Like, a true belly laugh?

Diana Alt [00:31:08]:
I had one yesterday. You know, I had one yesterday. And I'm. But there have been times when I would go weeks and I like to laugh. Like some people are buttoned up. Like I like funny stuff.

Dr. Ketam Hamdan [00:31:21]:
So I'm like, you know, I'm like, you can't find. Go online, find something funny to laugh at. But it just, you know that that whole childlike we are meant. You know, most of us are children walking around in adult bodies, but that true innocent child in us that's alive and joyful is dead. Or the, the angry child or the, the sad child or the anxious child. Those parts are the awakened parts.

Diana Alt [00:31:43]:
Yeah. Whenever I first started therapy with a Good therapist, within 10 minutes of our very first session, he said to me, if you always been a grown up. And it was very interesting to be asked that question. And so we were tracing back and like me kind of, I think I lost that earlier than a lot of other people did. And when I talk to some of the people that are high achievers that I work with, they lost it earlier too. So it's like, oh, and, and let's be, let's be precocious about learning math or music or science or whatever our domain is. Let's not be precocious about shutting off joy.

Dr. Ketam Hamdan [00:32:23]:
That's not, that's not a flex circumstance like parentification. Right. Some children had to become, you know, a second like basically mom's helper helping with the other siblings. You know, they take on these. Or if, if the father was incarcerated or not around. So unfortunately, you know, your. These roles become forced upon you and all of a sudden you're taking on this caretaker role and never being taken care of. Of.

Diana Alt [00:32:47]:
Yeah, it's a real thing. And I was a middle kid. So like that peacemaker vibe just that all by itself is. Is something else. So what is something that people are doing every day that is actually hurting their ability to think clearly? But they think it's such a positive and great thing that they're doing as a high performer.

Dr. Ketam Hamdan [00:33:13]:
Do scrolling.

Diana Alt [00:33:16]:
Okay. That's real. Yeah.

Dr. Ketam Hamdan [00:33:18]:
I mean, you know, I don't care who you are. The amount of times just look over like I'll be in a restaurant or in the airport or you just watch. They're just. They don't even realize that there's, you know, going through one after another and after another. Now because I do brain scans, I've actually done a brain scan on myself after doom scrolling for an hour.

Diana Alt [00:33:37]:
Oh my gosh. What does that look like?

Dr. Ketam Hamdan [00:33:39]:
So one of the things, the markers is it looks for different brain waves. And the, the brain. You have something called Theta, which is your slow brain waves. It shuts off your frontal part of your brain, which is your executive functioning, your critical thinking, your decision making. It just makes you blah. Like blah.

Diana Alt [00:33:57]:
Is that why? And it just propagates the doom scrolling because when you shut all that off, then you don't want to get up and do anything. You don't want to go play the piano or hug your kids or whatever. You just want to feel like the world is ending and falling apart and keep feeling that way.

Dr. Ketam Hamdan [00:34:17]:
But what happens is that what people don't understand about the brain. And I learned this through working with domestic violence victims who will be literally be on the stand in court and will be like a deer in headlights like this. And you know, offline, she was able, able to speak, could tell her story, but on the stand because the anxiety, the emotions are so intense. And she saw her abuser was literally a deal in headlights. And I'm like, I need to scan this lady's brain. This. You would literally see the speech part of her brain, which is on the left frontal side was offline. And the frontal part of her brain, which brings words to expression, the amygdala, which is the emotional part of her brain, was on fire.

Dr. Ketam Hamdan [00:35:01]:
So when the emotional part of the brain is on fire, you cannot bring words or any type of cognitive decision making or language to life. And so when you're doom scrolling equivalent, you have the emotional part of the brain 10 times more active than this frontal part and the frontal lobe, which is your critical to just getting things done in life. Yeah, vision. And you know, I actually, I know I have three kids and they're this new alpha generation. I'm worried sick for their future because they're becoming so. How do I say this? Like zombies behind the screen. I try to take it away and keep them active, et cetera, et cetera. But you see a different generation in terms of just executive functioning and planning and control.

Dr. Ketam Hamdan [00:35:44]:
And that's not developing the way it should. Yeah, no desire to get driver's license. No desire to get jobs. No desire. They're like, oh, good news, teenage pregnancies is down.

Diana Alt [00:35:55]:
They don't leave the house. That's not a flax.

Dr. Ketam Hamdan [00:36:02]:
But that's the thing. They're like, but yeah, but they're not getting jobs, they're not getting their driver's license, you know, and they're not motivated to.

Diana Alt [00:36:09]:
Yeah, there's no reason to when you can access everybody you want to talk to through the phone.

Dr. Ketam Hamdan [00:36:13]:
So you know what I'm telling my clients Is that if you are going to use social media, which it can be used for great things, you need to be very intentional with it.

Diana Alt [00:36:21]:
Yes.

Dr. Ketam Hamdan [00:36:22]:
Meaning that it can be as, you know, motivating and uplifting based on the content that you're seeing. But if the content is so random, then you are just, you're wasting your time. You're better off going and getting a book or reading it.

Diana Alt [00:36:37]:
I think people need to do both.

Dr. Ketam Hamdan [00:36:39]:
Yeah.

Diana Alt [00:36:40]:
I think people are scrolling instead of reading a lot of the time.

Dr. Ketam Hamdan [00:36:44]:
That's why they like videos as opposed to like the, you know, the posts.

Diana Alt [00:36:50]:
Yeah. So interesting when you were talking about the amygdala and the frontal, the this and the this.

Dr. Ketam Hamdan [00:36:57]:
Yeah.

Diana Alt [00:36:58]:
I'm pointing at my head for the people that are just listening. I think of every single person that is freaked out about an interview, a job interview and what is going on with them. And I have had people, especially ones that have been laid off for some time that are amazing, mock interview with me really well and in some cases network really well too. And they will come to me and say, I just shut down during that interview. I shut down during the case presentation for director of whatever. And folks don't think that can happen. They're like, you have an MBA, you've been doing this for 20 years. You got promoted three times in the last five years.

Diana Alt [00:37:39]:
What's going on? I got laid off last October. It's been six months. And the wolf. Yeah. So that's a really powerful example because I think. Here's another interesting thing that I'm, I'm interested in your take on. While we're comparison. You know, we, we talk a lot about part of the, part of the doom and doom scrolling is comparing ourselves to other people.

Dr. Ketam Hamdan [00:38:03]:
Yes.

Diana Alt [00:38:03]:
So we're comparing our real life to their highlight reel. The kids look beautiful in their matching outfits for the Easter pictures or whatever. Or so and so looks like they're killing it in their business or whatnot. And it's not necessarily true, but we're comparing ourselves to it. The other thing that they're doing is comparing themselves in terms of qualifications and you know, am I good anymore? Because I haven't worked for six months. It's like, you worked for 20 years. Why would you not still be good? You know that if you, if you're having thoughts that you're not good, I would submit that they are not facts. But they will if, if you bring up a lot of these things about is there trauma associated with this? Is your amygdala shutting off? They don't want to acknowledge that because they think that the person that was in the war or had cancer or is the domestic violence person on the stand has it worse.

Diana Alt [00:39:02]:
It's like we're doing competitive trauma, and in the case of a lot of my people, they come up short because they don't have enough trauma. So they don't think that they deserve to work on it or. Or to have grace because of it or work through it. Does that make sense?

Dr. Ketam Hamdan [00:39:18]:
Absolutely. And I tell people, somebody else's hard doesn't make your heart less hard. Yeah, somebody, you know, we. We compare. Even we've compared the good. We always compare. Oh, well, they have it worse. You know, I have people like, oh, what's happening, you know, overseas is 10 times.

Dr. Ketam Hamdan [00:39:32]:
And I'm like, somebody, you know. Yes, it's great that you're compassionate. You have. You're. But it's a form of dismissing your own.

Diana Alt [00:39:37]:
Yeah, it's the. It's the worst. The worst thing that's ever happened to you is the worst thing that's ever happened to you. It's 10 out of 10. If you have another worst thing happen to you later, Maybe that's the 10 out of 10 on your. Your prior 10 is now a 7 out of 10.

Dr. Ketam Hamdan [00:39:52]:
We're comparing it against someone else's. So you're like, I don't get it. Right. I don't have the right to read this. A 10 out of 10 because.

Diana Alt [00:39:58]:
Right.

Dr. Ketam Hamdan [00:39:59]:
Compared to someone else's, that's really a 10. Right. So it's like we dismiss or do reduce our own pain.

Diana Alt [00:40:05]:
Oh, I had a conversation when I. When I had surgery last year and I was in the hospital, I had a conversation with a nurse about pain scale because she said that one of the. I don't know. I'm chatty with everybody. So here I am, I'm, like, stoned on whatever they gave me for pain. And I'm talking to this nurse about this, and she said that one of the interesting things that mature, like, as she progressed in her career as a nurse she learned about, is to try to identify who is giving too low of a pain number, which they read on their face because they're not saying 10 out of 10 being the worst pain they've ever had, but it's 10 out of 10 being the worst possible pain that they could ever imagine, and they're not there. And I was like, that's interesting.

Dr. Ketam Hamdan [00:40:54]:
Yeah, that is interesting, actually.

Diana Alt [00:40:57]:
Yeah. So rewiring your brain, that's something that was kind of thematic and Some of the stuff I was reading about you. How do people think about, I don't want to be like this anymore. I want, I want to be better. How do they think about rewiring their brain?

Dr. Ketam Hamdan [00:41:16]:
It really comes down to on, you know, people are like, I know what I need to do. I just, you know, what do I need to do? And I asked them, on a scale of 1 to 10, you know, without. There's a form of therapy called psychosynthesis where he's, it says it has to start with Will. On a scale of 1 to 10, how desperate do you want to change this? And if you tell me an eight or seven, I said, you're not there. It really needs to be 10 out of 10 or 11 out of 10 where you're like, I want to be done with this. Like, yeah, that's what I've noticed within myself and others. Because like, I'll have, you know, people that, like I have students, they're residents, right? They're, they're studying to be a doctor or whatever, their residency program and they're like, I'm procrastinating. And I said, listen, you've gotten through all these years of school and it's worked for you.

Dr. Ketam Hamdan [00:42:04]:
You might not like it, but it's worked for you. So until it stops working for you and it's too painful, you're probably not going to do anything about it. So stop eating it.

Diana Alt [00:42:14]:
The way I say that is that the pain of the change has to be the pain of the change. When it exceeds the pain of what the problem is, you're not going to make the change. You have to have the pain of the situation exceed the pain of the change.

Dr. Ketam Hamdan [00:42:31]:
I try to kind of assess like, are they just saying it because they feel like they need to change, but they're not, they don't, they don't have buy in. And a lot of times they're, you know, someone has told them it's wrong or they might have, like it's not what they want for themselves. So a lot of times people, you know, don't have the space to really self reflect and kind of just get real with themselves about what you know. Why do you even want to change it? Because someone said so or because it's not the same as someone else? So sometimes it's matter, it's not even about changes, about just learning what can you accept and what do you really want to change? Because it is 11 out of 10.

Diana Alt [00:43:05]:
And a lot of times, yeah, it's the should. So often when I'm dealing with people and we're trying to muddle through stuff. It's like, well, I should. And I'm like, says who? So really I, I should get my pmp. I hear this, I've heard this a lot over the years. Well, I want to be more employable in the tech industry where I'm at. I should get my pmp, be a certified project manager. Says who? Well, but that's the certification.

Diana Alt [00:43:33]:
I'm like, here's what you do. Go pull five jobs you'd want to work and tell me how many of them have a PMP as a requirement. If it's four or five out of five, then I could go with it. And there are people that it is if they want to work in the government sector. The government sector does want that. But people that are just in regular high tech, it's preferred or it's not even on the list. So should you or should you not go get evidence?

Dr. Ketam Hamdan [00:44:02]:
Yeah, I mean, no, you're absolutely right. And I, and I feel that one of the things that people need to do is self inventory of what are they, what can they accept about themselves and what can they absolutely 1000% not accept? And you'd be surprised. Most people can accept far more than they are willing to admit. They might. Just because you don't like something doesn't mean you can't accept it.

Diana Alt [00:44:23]:
Just do you find that the act of going through that exercise helps people like accept themselves at a higher level? Like when they go through here are 10 or 15 attributes or things that I don't like. But then when they really think about it, do they end up liking themselves as a whole more after going through that?

Dr. Ketam Hamdan [00:44:43]:
I'll give it so, but I'll, I have a mirror, I give them a mirror and I say just let's. I start with the kind of the superficial self image part of like when you look in the mirror, do you like what you see? And that. And I never realized how difficult of, of a exercise that is for most people.

Diana Alt [00:45:02]:
It's very hard.

Dr. Ketam Hamdan [00:45:03]:
Yeah. Most can't maintain eye contact with the mirror. Want to put it down, shy away. We're like, yeah, sometimes, you know, I'm having a good hair day and I'm like, you know, those find a way to kind of be okay with it. But I'm saying like, okay, now just like literally look at yourself in the mirror. Do you generally like what you see or name three things you like what you see?

Diana Alt [00:45:24]:
Yeah, I feel like that is easier

Dr. Ketam Hamdan [00:45:26]:
than yeah, but I mean I guess that shock factor kind of gets them because then it's like you start with egg to like. Yeah. To then reducing. Okay, name three things that you like. And then they're like, you know, they're struggling. We're scrambling.

Diana Alt [00:45:39]:
You work with a lot. You work with high profile people as part of your practice. Some of these people. Are some of them in industries or roles where their physical appearance is more important than others? And if so, does that, like, does the, does the emphasis on physical appearance related to someone's industry or role impact how easy or hard it is for an exercise like that to work for them?

Dr. Ketam Hamdan [00:46:12]:
Not necessarily actually, because the, the inner critic, I think at a superficial level maybe, but the inner critic is the inner critic.

Diana Alt [00:46:20]:
Okay.

Dr. Ketam Hamdan [00:46:21]:
So maybe when they have a suit on, they might feel a little bit more polished and stuff, but by and large that, that will last for a very short window.

Diana Alt [00:46:28]:
Okay.

Dr. Ketam Hamdan [00:46:29]:
You know, and you can usually get to the core of like, because you're getting to the kind of hidden core, negative core beliefs about themselves.

Diana Alt [00:46:37]:
No, I think that's important because I, you know, it might, it might, sometimes it helps people whenever they look at, at comparison in a different way, like doom scrolling comparison bad. But looking at someone and going, that person is utterly gorgeous. You know, I would kill to look like that person kind of thing and then realize like, they do actually have demons. They do have demons. They do have the same inner critic that you do.

Dr. Ketam Hamdan [00:47:06]:
Not more.

Diana Alt [00:47:08]:
If, if everybody has the same inner critic, then everybody has the ability to, to work on their inner critic.

Dr. Ketam Hamdan [00:47:17]:
I think, you know, my team and the people that I work with, they like, I got a lot of compliments, but, you know, I kind of continue to work on myself, but I'm always like uncomfortable with it. And they would always be like, oh my God, like if you have insecurity issues, like, what should we say? And I'm like, you know, it's, it's, it's like they even compare that they're like, if some, like someone like me has probably, you know, problems accepting compliments or doesn't think I'm beautiful or is insecure about certain things, you know, it's as if, like, then they should be at another level of insecurity. And I'm like, wow, you know, I go, my issues are my issues. But if you want to own them too and can use them to compare

Diana Alt [00:47:52]:
my own, I'll hand them over. Like, you can carry these for a while, that's fine.

Dr. Ketam Hamdan [00:47:57]:
I wish your compliments were enough to get rid of them. But you know, it's. You have to. So most people don't even realize how bad, you know, what they really believe about themselves. I think the problem is at a conscious level, we might think higher of ourselves, but it's that inner child, that unconscious world, 85%, that's really in the driver's seat, and that's the child that we need to all connect to.

Diana Alt [00:48:21]:
Yeah.

Dr. Ketam Hamdan [00:48:22]:
A lot of times I'm teaching people, like, look, your conscious self, your professional self, that lawyer, doctor judging you, that's 15. The other 85% is that, you know, that little kid. What was your nickname growing up? And they'll give me. And I'm like, that's the 85 we need to work on. Because you're not even aware.

Diana Alt [00:48:40]:
Yeah.

Dr. Ketam Hamdan [00:48:40]:
What, you know, little Johnny thinks of

Diana Alt [00:48:42]:
himself or one of the things I say sometimes whenever I have a friend. I don't, you know, I have some clients that I'm closer to with. I've used it on a client, some clients in the past. But when someone starts their inner critic starts coming out of their mouth and they're bad mouthing their self, I will just look straight out and say, I need you to stop talking about my friend that way. I really need you to stop talking bad about my friend that way. And it stops people in their tracks, especially men. Like, I. I feel like women think about this thing a little bit more on average, I think.

Diana Alt [00:49:19]:
And so when I look at a man and say, I need you to stop thinking about my friend Mike, talking about my friend Mike that way, they're like, wait, what?

Dr. Ketam Hamdan [00:49:28]:
What?

Diana Alt [00:49:29]:
So what is. So you have people you go through, you look at, you know, first superficial. Superficial. And then deeper things. Can I accept this? Can I not accept this? When you're going through that with people, do you often find that there's just one or two things that they can't accept? Or do you find more often that there's a whole laundry list? And how do you kind of process that with people once you.

Dr. Ketam Hamdan [00:49:56]:
Well, a lot of people are quick to kind of name this, the physical stuff, like their skin, their weight, their hair things, you know, like at the physical level. And then getting them to kind of look inside in terms of, like, what, you know, when you look in the mirror, what are the three character traits that you could say about yourself that

Diana Alt [00:50:17]:
you like and character traits. Got it.

Dr. Ketam Hamdan [00:50:21]:
Yeah. You know, like, I'm kind or I'm honest or I'm resilient. Like something just in terms of, like, get them to kind of. And I'm always surprised how people were like, I don't know. They don't. They've never spent, you know, we spend most of our life trying to fix what's wrong with us. A lot of times we don't have. We've never spent time thinking about what is good with me.

Dr. Ketam Hamdan [00:50:43]:
Yeah, what do you like about me? What is good about me? And it's like, you know, and you almost see like this innocent child come out of like, oh, I don't know.

Diana Alt [00:50:52]:
One of the most, one of the most impactful things that a mentor did with me. Gosh, it's been close to 20 years at this point. I'm getting old. But they introduced me to CliftonStrengths.

Dr. Ketam Hamdan [00:51:08]:
Okay.

Diana Alt [00:51:09]:
And are you familiar with Clifton strengths? It's, it's a personality assessment. It's basically Don Clifton as the person that created it. It's used a lot in professional development and a lot of organizations. Gallup owns this methodology because the companies merged and the whole idea was started in the 50s by the Creator, Don Clifton, who asked the question, what if we studied what was right with people? And if you think about management in the 50s and 60s, when he was developing this, it was very like theory X, top down hierarchical kind of thing. A lot of times you were lucky to hear that you did a good job. You only heard if you did stuff negative. So that was kind of the culture of the time. And so I got interested in that almost 20 years ago and certified as a coach in that about five years ago.

Diana Alt [00:51:59]:
And so I'm wired to think about the positive side. But it's such a good reminder that

Dr. Ketam Hamdan [00:52:05]:
most people don't do that. We're not important because we feed what's wrong. But if you're not feeding what's good, you're not going to get more of that either. Like reminds it is that it's vi character.org it's a free character analysis that you can do and it's, it's based off of. It's positive psychology. Right.

Diana Alt [00:52:26]:
It's like. Yeah. And strength psychology is like a little branch. Yeah, it's a little subgroup.

Dr. Ketam Hamdan [00:52:32]:
I like that because it's free. And they take 24 universal character traits that you have. And their whole premise is that we all, we each have five. You know, it ranks 24 traits from one to 24. But they say by and large that the first five are things that we're actually naturally born with. And it's part of our own core self that if we don't feed it, we probably will feel A little bit blah.

Diana Alt [00:52:58]:
It's very much in line with the. The Clifton Street.

Dr. Ketam Hamdan [00:53:02]:
One of them for me is like creativity. Right. So like, routine will kill me. If you want me to be depressed, tell me to do the same thing every single day. Whereas for someone else, that would be like a dream, you know, for creativity for them. Yeah, it's like. It's like death. The other one was like love of learning.

Dr. Ketam Hamdan [00:53:22]:
Right. So it's like if I don't not learning new things, I also find feel like dead, you know, so spirituality is another one's kind of like things for a higher purpose. So I notice that like when I'm doing things to help others, I tend. It feeds my bucket.

Diana Alt [00:53:35]:
Yeah.

Dr. Ketam Hamdan [00:53:36]:
You know, like I have a colleague. Kindness is hers, not on top of mine, but like for hers. Is it. So when she's not doing things that feed that character trait, then she also notices that she starts to feel depressed.

Diana Alt [00:53:47]:
Yes.

Dr. Ketam Hamdan [00:53:48]:
So it's. It's learning to nurture, like nature versus nurture. It's like, okay, there's a nature part, but you have to nurture what nature is.

Diana Alt [00:53:55]:
I'm gonna totally be doing this right after because it's very much in line and sometimes. So the core CliftonStrengths assessment, it's very robust. It has millions of data points. It's been studied to death, but it also costs money. And so something like this that I could give as a resource for free people is really valuable.

Dr. Ketam Hamdan [00:54:15]:
You love it.

Diana Alt [00:54:16]:
It gives you character. You said dot org. Yeah, character. Okay.

Dr. Ketam Hamdan [00:54:23]:
It's free. And then like, I mean, they'll try to send you, sell you things at the end. But yeah, well, on. You don't need to buy anything.

Diana Alt [00:54:31]:
Oh, well, thank you for sharing that. So when someone succeeds in externally, but they don't address what is going on internally, what's going to happen to them? Are they just going to be frustrated? Is this going to collapse at some point? I. I guess what I'm really getting at is if someone has outside markers of success, why should they fool with it? Why should they fool with the inside?

Dr. Ketam Hamdan [00:55:03]:
Because they're most likely not really feeling joy. I mean, I'm gonna. If you can see my screen.

Diana Alt [00:55:12]:
Oh, yeah, let's get this and show this. So for those of you that are just listening, we are. I'd hardly ever do this, but we are showing something on the screen right now.

Dr. Ketam Hamdan [00:55:27]:
I'm gonna, you know, walk you through this in simple colors. Right. The green zone is where we want to be. It's where the brain and the body are connected and you are basically alive. You, you're feeling your feelings, you're experiencing love, joy, peace. You're just, you're present. Okay. Now things happen throughout the day that will take us out of this green zone.

Dr. Ketam Hamdan [00:55:48]:
And for some people, that green zone is a lot smaller based on how much distress they've got in their life. And they live and they hang out most of the time either in this red zone or which is their fight or flight, where they're yelling, they're getting defensive, they're uncomfortable, or ultimately they're in this blue zone where they're just disassociated. It's a very flat effect, which is what I see for with a lot of high functioning performance professionals.

Diana Alt [00:56:12]:
Okay.

Dr. Ketam Hamdan [00:56:12]:
So they're going through the mood and

Diana Alt [00:56:13]:
then they get told it's like gravitas because they're cool and collected. And that's really not. Yeah.

Dr. Ketam Hamdan [00:56:19]:
And society rewards this, applauds it, encourages it.

Diana Alt [00:56:22]:
Yeah.

Dr. Ketam Hamdan [00:56:24]:
For most people though, this state, they know that you're tired, you're not motivated, you're exhausted, you basically can't. Don't feel connected. You know, like I have a lot of times, like, you know, I walk, I see my kids, they're there, but I'm just. There's no connection.

Diana Alt [00:56:39]:
Yeah.

Dr. Ketam Hamdan [00:56:40]:
And. And they get to a point where they just, they're tired of feeling because all the success in the world doesn't make them feel better.

Diana Alt [00:56:46]:
Yeah.

Dr. Ketam Hamdan [00:56:47]:
And they want feeling joy or feeling something other than.

Diana Alt [00:56:51]:
So just to give. I'm going to give a little verbal description of this. So it's called polyvagal theory. At the top and the three areas. Red, which we said is fight or flight is called hyper arousal. The middle of green is. Which is safe is window of tolerance or regulation. And then blue or freeze.

Diana Alt [00:57:12]:
Does fawn also fall in there? If people are familiar with fawn. So freeze and fawn fall in blue. And that's called hypo arousal. So yes, just picture that in your head. And the resilience zone is that middle window of tolerance. So now if you want to go look on YouTube, you can, but if you don't want to, we've described it through too, so.

Dr. Ketam Hamdan [00:57:31]:
And I think so with children, they're naturally going. You're, you're not meant to just stay in the green right zone. You're going to go in and out. The goal is, is that our body should naturally automatically it takes you in and out of these, but it should come back to kind of this green zone. So you kind of get ugly you know, you get angry, but then you calm down and you're back in the green zone. Or you feel a little bit numb, but then you're able to kind of come back online. With adults, though, because you, you know, our brains are all about habit. The more you feel numb and don't regulate yourself to kind of come back alive, you tend to hang out there a bit longer.

Diana Alt [00:58:04]:
Yep.

Dr. Ketam Hamdan [00:58:05]:
And so for a lot of. They can, they'll tell me, I can't remember the last time I was in that green zone.

Diana Alt [00:58:12]:
Go, go, go. Yeah. And it's such. It's interesting because you talked about, you know, we make this too complex. We make it too complex. And so you draw it. Drew a picture that is accurate but has some complexity. But what I'm hearing you say is, guys, the joy is in the green.

Diana Alt [00:58:30]:
So if you go back to the question at the very beginning, when is the last time you felt joy? That can help you figure out where you're at. So I love this. This is. So, this is. I could talk to you all day. I don't. I'm unable to talk to you all day. But I didn't know where this was conversation was going to go because there's so much to this mind body connection inside, outside matching.

Diana Alt [00:58:54]:
But I'm glad we got to have a conversation about this today. I have one question that I ask everybody before we close, and that is, what is the worst career advice that you've ever received?

Dr. Ketam Hamdan [00:59:11]:
That's a great question.

Diana Alt [00:59:13]:
I know. I. I love this question. I need to get off my tail and like, make a playlist of it in YouTube

Dr. Ketam Hamdan [00:59:21]:
that, you know, I'm gonna trust my gut. I just. To keep the words that keep coming is suck it up.

Diana Alt [00:59:25]:
Suck it up.

Dr. Ketam Hamdan [00:59:27]:
Yeah.

Diana Alt [00:59:27]:
Yeah. That is terrible advice. Literally, I'm in a place for sucking.

Dr. Ketam Hamdan [00:59:33]:
Yeah. But I think, I think that gets comes programmed of like, you know, turn like. And that's what I was saying. I hated the person I became because even if I did things that kind of went against my own soul of like, somehow told to like, suck it up. Like, you know, and I think it's another form of shut it down. Don't feel. Just accept it.

Diana Alt [00:59:53]:
There's a, There's a way. Suck it up. Whenever you're purposely doing the not fun parts of pursuing a goal, that's fine. Suck it up in disregard your own needs is not fine. So I think that's a really interesting and important distinction. Well, thank you so much for joining me today. This was a great, great conversation. I.

Diana Alt [01:00:15]:
I really appreciate it. And I hope that if you feel like you're inside and your outside are not matching, we've got a lot of stuff in the show, notes about Dr. Hamden's work. And so go and check it out. Go look at some more brain scan pictures online. That's some interesting stuff to go and look at. And I'll see you guys next time on Work. Should feel good.