Angela Schroeder | Ep #14 | Managing Teams with Doshas

advice hey guys i’m tasha hey listeners this is ghooni and you’re tuned in to deaf the podcast where we chat and explore all things on integrative medicine so we have a special guest with us today her name is angela schroeder she is a qualified ayurvedic practitioner reflexologist a mother and a successful i.t consultant she specializes in bringing holistic and mindful leadership methods to the corporate workplace through combining her knowledge in project management and human capital development methodologies with her knowledge in ayurveda so welcome to daughter of the podcast angela we are super eager and excited for our conversation with you today thank you for inviting me i’m delighted to be here well i know goony and i have been talking to you for a bit could you share with our audience a little bit about yourself and what you do okay um so i started my iv journey around 10 years ago um prior to that i’ve been in it for about 12 years um i’ve been a reflexologist for 15 years since and it began with abinga massage combining that with reflexology outside of in my corporate job which i then went back to so um i’m a work day it project manager for those of you out there know what that is it’s a cloud-based system so having to do this for my lifestyle um i brought in what i’ve learned since so it’s been very much i t and then having time off to have my children so i have two boys and 15. some also mum businesswoman and i vedic practitioner now yoga meditation was also helped me very much so in the last six years so i practice what i preach i i do that i can’t cope doing all this without what i’ve learned i like how you’re so versatile um yeah it’s it’s exciting no i don’t think so it just probably gives you a lot of insight to a lot of things um so in the in the corporate side like with your ayurvedic can you tell us a bit more about what you do there yes so although i’m when i’m at a company in a corporate capacity i’m a project manager i also run well-being programs so i was at accenture for a year i ran their well-being program and so that was a mixture of teaching yoga teaching recording meditation techniques having people come in to do talks about different modalities i called it a digital detox and everything was ground not doing anything on the phone or on the computer which is obviously very much part of everybody’s life yeah yeah but to teach everyone to just disconnect from the tech and connect to each other and connect to ourselves to to become more aware of how we feel because as you know when we’ve got too much stress too much cortisol and all those stressy chemicals going around the body we disconnect so we don’t feel how we are and the brain is doing that so that we can continue to do our job but we do need to disconnect from that so that we can connect ourselves again yeah to to what extent were you able to share the knowledge of ayurveda to in this wellness program for example yeah so the talk that i did i called it food for the soul so i took in some samples of food all the six tastes so that i loved it and yeah but it’s the satisfaction of of life and it’s a satisfaction also what we eat and then those is the six tastes so i just took in some little samples and some tulsi tea and some chai and just you know for the doshas which i’ll talk about in a moment so certain doses might like sweet others might not others might need heat and spice and some might be cooling down so it was just to explain in an experience and i think the way to approach the corporate audience through holistic practices is to show them the experience that’s that’s the best way that i’ve found and then there isn’t any argument because people will give you a testimonial based on how they feel yeah yeah so true yeah because now if i were to so in my corporate journey or my career path so when i was in the corporate i i did a leadership program and um one of the first thing that they ask you is a personality assessment those very expensive ones that are basically there’s like the disc and they you know which color you are and um the idea is to get to know yourself so that you can then be able to manage teams effectively um then they kind of go on in in explaining to you how to um how to manage your stakeholders etc but really there’s like a big emphasis on getting to know yourself and as i transition to being an entrepreneur and and you know going through this this path where i i see things a bit more holistically i try to manage teams as well in a holistic way and so i i do think because i i have a bit of a background in ayurveda i do see my team members with that doshas so i’m i’m looking at them and i’m like oh okay so you know what do you see um i asked her to do a test that she might be pitta kapha and and so how how to i would approach her very differently from somebody who is like for example diana who’s a bit more of a bata and um and i always kind of do it without them really knowing but i’m thinking would with your line of work have you come across kind of um being able to help teams or managers to kind of incorporate some some bit of ayurvedic in the way they they manage their teams i have very much so so the program that i ran out accenture i did a talk to the team so this was a team of i.t workday cloud based consultants yeah and i gave them all the documents so that they worked out what their doctor was so that they could understand what they were and of course they’re all teammates yeah so then i’d also presented to them about how the doshas work so you know barter looking at the physiology you know very slim slight small bones um think like a bird think of the element of air talked about the elements the five elements and the three doshas so bartos air then we’ve got the kuffa and the fire and as you and i know that who’ve studied ayurveda fire is very much those that are in the business world because we tend to be very organized like teachers lawyers doctors i.t professionals managers so our digestive fires that fire in our belly our desire for this is very ordered so we like to learn things so conditions apply to people so vata it’s very very quick quick chat chat team to be sales based um and creative people and uh fitter would be fire and organized and the couple would be just maybe in a support capacity you know more than nurturer the um difficult part about identifying someone’s dosha is to be accurate and um so you have tests that can help you but i think that those elements you were talking about kind of help re-emphasize your like if they are really bitter or kapha et cetera and so i kept on saying to tasha there is a lot of kapha in you like potentially you don’t recognize and but there’s also a lot of pitta but so when you were saying curly hair yeah i was like did you just see me and tell me this you should just describe tasha basically yeah i mean i’ve done the dosha quiz before and so like i think i got uh kapha pita but i’m always questioning myself i do it like every few years once as well and then i get like slightly different answers but kapha’s always there so i know that’s true because we’re born we’re born with our prat fruity prat frutti is our thumbprint that’s us as a unique being yeah um we come into the world we are a balance of the five elements with two dominant doses we’re always a mix of all three some people are a balanceable three they tend to be very peaceful people like monks and you know when you’re in the presence of someone that is tridosha balance you just feel so good so calm um and it’s rare it’s rare but it does happen and i think when we’re all on the quest to to achieve a balance of corporate and family and life and and getting to know ourselves it’s important to understand so we’re born with our practice and then when we come out of balance because we’ve got pressures and stress and the chaos of life um that we get out of balance and that’s called our vicarity so that’s when your ocean may change so and those periods of time is when you become a mum obviously you naturally become more comfortable so you your hormones change so you physically change inside so and then once your children start to grow up you go back to your practice they’re back to balance if you’re finding that a challenge you might want to visit an eye radio practitioner and do a quiz you can do the quizzes for yourself but it’s never the same as somebody reading your pulses looking at your tongue right because there’s there’s different ways to identify your dosha right so you said there would be like kind of lifestyle questions yeah then there would be your past your tongue or any anything else i’m missing i would talk about diet yeah yeah i would talk about someone’s diet i would talk about how do you like to eat and that comes back full circle to what we were just saying so a battle person would like crispy crunchy food and they would eat like a bird little and often if it’s a person likes you know the spice they like the hot spicy food and they like it if i if i were to say to you are you hungry okay right i have an idea but a a very pitted person will look at their watch and they’ll still think is it yeah is it the right time she has the microphone in her hand exactly i might have said oh wait uh is it really time to eat them but yeah so i have a mix of both yeah so the agony which is the digestive fires that’s the word fire um needs to be fired up every six hours we need to keep eating so if you’re out of balance with your dosa make sure that you’re eating every six hours so for someone that’s more cougher again they would like um more sweet and yep sticky foods and they can actually go all day to like just after lunchtime without eating and then they may have like one or two meals a day but actually they need they need more of a kick so i’m for someone that’s sort of stuck in the coffer i wouldn’t do some of the younger massage the tapping cupping get the stimulation i would do some prana career exercises get jumping up and down move the energy in the dosha because in the copper it just gets really calm and steady but if you’re managing someone that’s tougher you kind of need like chop chop yeah you know i’m having my hands with the speaker here but it’s more of a motivation how do i motivate this person so that they feel good about what they’re doing and i can help them on that journey to getting things done so someone that’s tougher i would remind i would repeat what i’m saying because their memory is slower okay think like an elephant an elephant never forgets but it might mean to have done it a few times um can you believe this stop looking at me every single time so comfort side of me is i need to repeat so if i learn things and as i’m getting older coming to learning new things like i learned an i.t system when i was really young called peoplesoft yeah 12 and a half years of the top of my game yeah then i had nine years off to have my children and i learnt all of the holistic things in the meantime which i loved and i had space in my brain so my head was clear and then i went back to doing something for work day and it never killed me because it was just like i had absolutely been repeat repeat repeat before i can actually get this around in my head and now 2014 now i’m project managing you know i’ve got it and i will never forget it because that’s part of my notion you know it’s in your dna i never think because when people and i really like to talk about the doshas they tend to talk about coffee everyone goes oh i don’t want to be tougher but actually we need that loving the nurturing and the caring and in our teams as managers it’s really important but to also understand that business is business and so we need the fire right for the movement so um i i like to say i i because i know i’m predominantly bitter but it’s interesting that you’re saying for for example for kapha uh you need to give a framework i would give a framework i would give an action list give them a deadline and um you know pop them reminders and in the conversation i would repeat a few times what you’ve asked them to do okay and make sure that either you’ve written it down and send it to them or that they’ve written it down for themselves so they’re asking the information uh in different format okay when you say card is there some element of ayurveda that could address or talk about the level of like pressure and stress in the moment that they would react slower to the stress and pressure yeah and again i think if you find that you’re at a place in your career where you’re feeling unsettled and you’re leaving your work for example the cuff of those [ __ ] you might find that you’re not in the right job you know that you might want to do something that is more of a nurturing type of or you might be ready to be a mum or you might just find that you need a different way of coming to life so you have something where you’ve got impact that you would do some career and then the careers we use breath and sound and movement so and we jump up and down so we need that stimulation and also water swimming walking outdoors get your shoes off outdoors anything where you’re going to connect them in so if you think what the elements are so if we which i’ve not talked about yet so kafka dosha is earth and water so we’re physical physically very grounded that’s what makes us nice to be around because you’re nice and calm and people gravitate towards kind of like magnets and we hold space for people that’s right so that you want those people in your team because they’re going to people that are going to be there they’re rock solid they’re never going to let you down they’re going to get it done but they might just take their time about it yeah so get them up and running moving maybe have some team building activities get people into the places where you’re working and say right lunchtime we’re going to do some movement we’re going to do not just slow steady breathing you need to get up and moving around even have some walking meetings go out so talking about stress which of the doshas are the most is the most receptive to stress yeah absolutely and how does it show up because if you’re already fiery yeah if you’re pisser and you’re fiery you’re business-minded but if your environment is pushing you and pushing you and pushing you you tip over the edge with your stress levels so the fire hits the roof if you like so you become too hot internally and then that manifests in a temper a bad temper being grumpy you really need to eat when you need to eat otherwise everybody knows about it right yeah and you know they tend to be very athletic people so from the physiological point of view they’re very fit they like to keep fit they like to look good and that’s very much part of the pizza lifestyle but you know we’re all don’t forget a mix yeah three there’s something in them but we’re drawn naturally because we’re born with those qualities so always learn to love what you are and if you feel that you’re out of balance come along and do a quiz you know and come and meet the night voted doctor have a chat talk about what you’re eating and it might be you might surprise yourself you might think actually i thought i was this but really i’m not or actually ready right now i’m just a bit out of balance so i might need to cool down my pitter i might need you know some coriander water in the morning for a couple of weeks just to start cooling down the digestive fires eliminate the chillies and the alcohol and the stimulants cool down the liver um just for a period of time yeah and then you will know and everyone around you will know and then your land again and some meditation again and and so so comparing to kapha where you were saying that you need more movement and get that pace going for them for pitta which is already kind of on the go and so it’s kind of a calmer meditation swimming i’m walking or walking by water is a really good idea yeah so it’s exactly what i’m doing i have stopped eating spicy food because my environment is already providing that stress element so i don’t need an added point and then yes i love walking by the water i walk every day yeah and so and in terms of management how how do you manage the person they’re in a very orderly fashion you know a piece of person wants it straight straight down the line so this is what i want this is when i want to you know and this this is what’s going to happen after you’ve done this because they need reward right so everybody needs motivation but a bitter person will be naturally driven when we think about the vuners you know majestic domestic um so emotionally we’ve got our physical doses for the elements then we’ve got our emotions which are what we call the gooners so those elements of what we’re eating the qualities of the food so and that gets a bit more involved which i won’t go into but again to talk about even though you might eliminate things from your diet for a certain amount of time so then look at what you’re going to eat going forwards after you’ve done the balance just to make sure that you maintain that balance and then we’ve not really discussed avatar so about a person who eats little and often yeah um might be need reminding to to eat secure digestive fires up it can get too airy and very anxious and you’ll know that because they’ll chat non-stop and you’ll be like just breathe and they need to meditate and to stop and maybe someone vinyasa and how do you how do you manage about that person um patients again because they’re quick give them lots to do yeah and they if you want something done ask a busy person because they just get more and more organized so the pizza influence on nevada is good because this is organized and barter might start something not finished right so you need the balance of the pizza party so your last person just needs reigning in a bit they’ll have they’ll be a visionary they’ll be creative they have these wonderful ideas yeah but they need the cover person to manifest them and to root them yeah into the earth right is that clear so that’s why you need everyone because i i can recognize this is that usually um we have i have two creatives in in the team that i know for sure are others and i actually asked them to do a test recently and it confirmed this information helps me um guide them or manage them even better so that they can um exactly and and not feel um pressured or because this was one thing i wanted to ask for example for the kapha where you’re going to give reminders and you at what extent does it become micromanagement and you just gauge that so if they miss the deadline then they need then you know that you need to put a little bit more pressure on so you’ll know from trying something giving someone a chance and then if they’re not then it’s clear that they do need maybe everyday chats okay what you’re doing today let’s just take it on a daily basis right and what about the vodka then a vital person well yeah again getting it finished they might be good at getting started but they might not be good at following through so again give them a deadline and have a weekly meeting and say yeah maybe on a thursday just to say right okay what’s our deadlines for the end of the week how far are you along with this right have you started it and again i’m really talking surface level here you know and i’ve experienced this in being out of balance with all of these doses myself over my life and i see it in my children and i see it in my work colleagues and the people that i manage as a project manager and we also have to be human you know we’re not robots you know you can’t put this into ai for sure you know it your way it won’t work even if you know and secretly it the human condition is the human condition and we need the contact with each other yeah and actually that that’s where the connection is is that we talk to each other there comes a time when you’ve had too many emails and you need a face-to-face conversation even if it’s a have the camera on on zoom it’s really important to see people’s body language i had someone in a meeting that was like this holding their head and i’ve got a series of workshops coming up they’re long they’re going to be stressful and i already pinged her to say are you okay and it’s like after the meeting she’s just like i’m really tired i’m like right so now i’m going to facilitate some breath work even with people that have no idea what i’m doing i will bring in some facilitation and some techniques i will bring that i already do that i spent some time i did some teaching in milan and shanghai and in big teams and i’ve got everybody up she’s off let’s jump around eyes closed let’s breathe different techniques that i’ll bring in and how did they react they loved it yeah this is so different and you get out of your head and because you think in the office what are you you’re in your brain because you have to be because that’s why you’re there and then you move from the neck up you know not from the neck down yeah so these exercises get you out of your head and they get people talking so other workshops that i’ve run in germany where you’ve got multilingual where not everybody even speaks the same language their first language is different i find that the people when i’ve worked with these exercises are confident enough to use a translator to then talk to the room right and then you get all of the answers that you need so you can use these holistic techniques in a business manner and they work and i’m you know i’ve seen it and i’ve done it and it works but i think the key is that you need to know about those different doshas in in a very in an in-depth way yeah just you know read those um do a quiz and finish it off you know always exactly quizzes don’t forget since actually adding the career practices and the yoga so the depth that i’ve been to india and spent lots of time there the last six years that i really incorporate bringing that philosophy as a teacher and watching people’s body language from all of the other modalities that i’ve added on to not just ayurveda yeah as a consultant as a leader leadership training they teach you how to do all of this but with this knowledge about ayurveda you can add that other level of being human to it you can take people to one side and say i can see you’re struggling you might be able to give them more information or um get them together group people group people together so that they work as a triad yeah and even so not only are you mixing teams according to the doshas but you’re also equipped enough to provide them um tools and and tips so that they can customize their lives in a more effective way exactly with that language so somebody that’s smarter they’re regular sales they’re very good at charming they’ve got the language they can talk that’s fantastic for advanced person so put them in front of the clients right they’ll be amazing yeah they’ll get it done they’ll get that contract signs in that initial meeting and then the follow-through it’s okay you give it to a couple person and the pitted person is doing the management yeah you know coordinating everything making sure fast person gets it done and the couple person knows when it needs to be done by it right so and i’m really simplifying it but you could use that as as a very basic model yeah um and is it something that you go in to these corporate uh programs right and then you tell them okay so this is how i’m approaching it or you do it kind of subtly in the background no i wouldn’t bring that into the conversation at all because there’s stigmas attached to anything holistic people don’t understand and especially with a bit of person who likes to analyze everything they want to know why so i don’t say what it is it’s just part of who i am and i bring that in with the room and and people have an experience and and they come back for more and the programs i love doing them and you see people really enjoy it and that’s the feedback from my point of view but um yeah i wouldn’t label it as ayurveda i would learn what you need to learn about yourself and i would encourage you if you are in business and a leader to understand your team from the point of view of understanding yourself and then you’ll see where you fit in the picture and that you can help them to maybe learn for themselves otherwise it becomes a bit dictatorial yeah and we don’t want to dictate we want to serve you know what we’ve learned in our evaded the science of life the satisfaction is to be here as a human and experience our our present moment our present moment to experience those elements in our body what we are is this human being right now so to nurture each other to connect with each other and to do that collectively yeah i can’t stress that enough especially with all of this going on and then obviously we’re on tech here right now we’re on zoo but it’s great for you to be there with me so i guess in in this context what would you say to corporations or even team leaders how could they start this process and incorporate this well you know you can reach out to me and i can come in and have a chat with you guys and get the ball rolling in that sense so it’s a collaboration to come in have a talk with an expert learn the basics start to learn about yourself so top tips would be to book an appointment work out your dosha if you like and then you can then collaboratively help your team yeah and i think observing the way you lead your life from the you know the way you eat your personality when you come across stress or across work um just observe yourself a lot more so that you you’re able to even answer those questions awareness basically exactly that awareness and in a perfect environment where everybody’s balanced it works if you’ve been under stress for a long time and you’ve got lots of responsibility you may need to just stop and consider build up a meditation practice some yoga some korea adjust the diet and um you might even want to consider you know massage anger or even a patchy karma treatment which against the whole half an hour or more on its own that’s where you completely detox the body so okay yeah well it was so nice to see ayurveda in another setting in a different lens and it just reinforces kind of um how this complementary and alternative healthcare systems are holistic and it’s not just um it’s not just for your health it’s from the way you lead your life actually so um it was really interesting to have your take on this thank you thank youif you enjoyed this episode go ahead and select that follow a subscribe button for now stay safe and we’ll see you next week