Dermot Whelan — Burnout, Anxiety & the Science of Mindfulness

Adam Walker:I\'m Adam Walker, a biometrics consultant, and this is the Pharma Prescribed podcast, where leaders, innovators, and hidden voices in healthcare open up. No sound bites, no spin. Just raw insight, one prescription at a time. In an industry driven by data, protocols, and pressure, we rarely pause to ask the human questions.

Adam Walker:What drives us? What breaks us? And what truths live behind the titles we wear?

Adam Walker:Today\'s guest is Dermot Whelan, one of Ireland\'s most recognizable broadcasters and a leading voice in accessible science-informed mindfulness. He\'s a multi-award winning radio and TV presenter, best-selling author, comedian, and certified masters of wisdom and meditation teacher.

Adam Walker:He\'s helped thousands rethink stress and emotional wellbeing through his book, Mindful, his nationwide tours, and his chart-topping podcast. I first met Dermot at a conference in Prague in early 2025, when in the throes of my own grief, and his impact was immediate. In a room full of industry noise, he brought something rare: grounded clarity, humor, and a human-centered approach to behavioral change.

Adam Walker:That conversation, and our subsequent connection following a guided meditation, shaped how I think about resilience and vulnerability in corporate settings. Today, Dermot works globally with organizations and individuals, translating complex psychological concepts into practical, relatable habits, an ethos that aligns very powerfully and closely with the mission of Pharma Prescribed.

Adam Walker:Dermot, it\'s an honor to welcome you today to the podcast. For those of our audience who are not familiar with you, who are you, and what is the mission you\'re on?

Dermot Whelan:I like the word mission. It adds an extra layer of importance. Adam, it\'s a delight to be here, and thank you very much for inviting me onto your podcast.

Dermot Whelan:It\'s doing some extremely important work, extremely important conversations, and I\'m really happy to be part of it. And hello to all your wonderful listeners. So my name is Dermot. I live in a little fishing village outside of Dublin, North County Dublin. And I guess these days, one of the questions that I fear most if I\'m asked on a golf course, \"What do you do?\"

Dermot Whelan:\' Cause for many years it was very easy for me to answer that. I worked in radio, I worked in broadcasting, radio mainly, also some TV, over the last 20 years. I\'m a stand-up comic for about the same length of time. But in the last, it\'ll be three years in August, I made some changes. I stepped away from my radio show.

Dermot Whelan:I had a very popular radio show called Dermot and Dave with my best buddy, and I stepped away from that at the height of our ratings, which Dave was delighted about . Had to say, \"I\'m gonna go full time with this mindfulness stuff.\" Because as you rightly pointed out, I am a meditation teacher. I became one in 2018 after stumbling through life and learning all the lessons the hard way.

Dermot Whelan:But meditation for me over the last 15 years or so, actually a little bit more now has just been an exceptional tool, the best tool I know for staying balanced something which I wasn\'t for many years. Now I work with a lot of companies. I work with an awful lot of pharma companies actually.

Dermot Whelan:I was with one yesterday. I work with a lot of companies. I do my live shows, I write books. And my mission, if I have one and I think you mentioned the word in your intro for me, and it\'s one that\'s very important to me, and it\'s accessible. My mission is to make simple techniques and tips for down-regulating our nervous system, making friends with our stress response. And as I see it, turning a stress response which for years I felt was working against me and was mildly terrifying, turning that into a superpower, and I never thought that was ever gonna be possible, but that\'s how I see it now. I think once we\'re armed with a few tools, techniques, and a bit of wisdom, bit of knowledge, we can actually do that.

Dermot Whelan:So that\'s who I am, and that\'s the kind of work that I do.

Adam Walker:Thank you, Dermot. That\'s wonderful.

Adam Walker:I remember particularly in that moment of connection in the room at that conference that we were at, and you did what seemed like a very simple meditation at the end of a presentation around being busy and busyness.

Adam Walker:I remember listening to you talking around the busyness. And what was really powerful, and I don\'t know whether you\'ve experienced this or you experience this a lot, when you do this thing to a large audience or a small audience, do you have people in the room that seem to just have some strong reaction?

Dermot Whelan:Yes is the answer. Not everybody, but that\'s human nature. People are coming at this stuff from all different angles. I tell you what I do see a lot of, Adam, and it\'s a softening. It\'s a softening of resistance maybe to topic that particularly us men are resistant to a lot, so a softening of that.

Dermot Whelan:I see the beginning of openness, which is wonderful, people just gently opening their minds like I had to do back in the day, \'cause I was very cynical about all this stuff, as many people are. And I see the beginning of curiosity, and for me, curiosity\'s the most powerful stage. Because if we can get ourselves into at least a curious state, we\'re open to learning, we come out of a stress state, and, that\'s the beginnings\...

Dermot Whelan:I don\'t think we can really change anything about ourselves unless we start with a bit of curiosity. What if? That\'s what I do see. For those of you watching, I\'ve got my arms folded tightly across my chest now and this is a position I see particularly from a lot of men particularly at my live shows in theaters, because they might have been dragged along by their missus and say, \"You need this,\" \"you\'re coming. I bought the tickets.\" I always say at my live shows there\'s two kinds of people in my audience, people who are ready to be transformed and people who are dragged there by someone who\'s sick of their shit. So maybe your viewers or listeners go work out who they are, which category they would fall into.

Dermot Whelan:But this sort of tight arms across the chest I see at the start of my shows, and then gently as time goes, I can see the body softening and that resistance breaking down, and there\'s nothing I enjoy more. I get shivers of excitement. In fact, it was this feeling that really just made me lock into this stuff and reassure myself that I was , in the right place and on the right path for me, was looking out into an audience of people who were just sitting in that relaxed stillness, who may have been really wound up before they came in, and to watch an audience go from laughing to that stillness, and maybe their minds aren\'t perfectly still. But again, they\'re starting to open up to the possibility, and they\'re starting to get curious, and they\'re willing to just try it out, just experiment, so much of your industry is about data, it\'s about just- taking the data. We don\'t judge it. We just take the information, and we see what we can do with it and see what we can transform that information into. And- I think that\'s just a great place to be. That comes with curiosity because unfortunately, as we\'re human beings we don\'t see ourselves as a collection of data and information.

Dermot Whelan:We tend to sprinkle it with a heavy dose of judgment and shame and guilt, and that just stops us from progressing. So I love to see an audience or a group of people, whether they\'re in a company or in a theater just, open up to that curiosity. And yeah, I guess people come up to me after it, and some people have quite profound experiences.

Dermot Whelan:Other people, mightn\'t be in a place to really enjoy it. They mightn\'t be there yet. But again, I see myself as almost like a bouncer on a nightclub. I\'m just there to kinda get you through the door. I\'m a gatekeeper, you know? I just open the door for you.

Dermot Whelan:Whatever you wanna do with it after that is up to you. A lot of people like to go deeper and pursue it, and like yourself, obviously, at some point you got curious, and now it\'s taken your life in a whole new direction. So yeah, I guess I, do see people react in different ways, but I guess just starting to open their minds to curiosity is the big one.

Adam Walker:I think it\'s a wonderful, honest response. And as you were talking about that, I was thinking about the accessibility, but also your approach reminds me a little bit of hypnosis. I\'m also a strong - reactor to that. So I\'m also the guy that gets up on stage and does all the crazy voices, and my kids have seen me do this at various places.

Adam Walker:So there are definitely some people that are more suggestive and more open to it, of course.

Adam Walker:Taking a step back, I just wonder, was there a moment for you when the lights went on, and there was an event that drew you into this world more deeply?

Dermot Whelan:Yeah. Great question. I think there\'s always big events that sort of zoom in on what\'s going on for you.

Dermot Whelan:But if I\'m honest about it, ever since I was a small kid I\'ve had some level of, I don\'t know, I can call it anxiety or discomfort or a feeling of not being comfortable in my own skin. And it was really only after, when I got older and I look back, I was going, \"Oh, there\'s a clear pattern there that I just wasn\'t aware of.\"

Dermot Whelan:So you know, in school, I was always the kinda kid who liked to jump up on a stage and get involved in the school play and all that kinda stuff, but at the same time, I was always terrified, and that continued into my, adult life, that sense of wanting to- Get out there and get after it, and test myself and challenge myself.

Dermot Whelan:But at the same time, there was, a feeling that there was part of me saying no, don\'t do it. Don\'t do it. This is gonna be a disaster.\" And then my body would join in and create this sort of tension. So it\'s like I had one foot on the accelerator and one foot on the brake. I got embarrassed really easily.

Dermot Whelan:I was incredibly shy. I remember at one point I was known in school as the guy who turned purple because I got so embarrassed I went beyond red into purple. I always sweated a lot, I felt very uncomfortable around grown-ups, Adults freaked me out. That feeling you have as a kid when the visitors come to the house, your dad\'s work friends or something.

Dermot Whelan:That nervousness never went away. I always had it, even as a young man. I started in radio, and I was a newsreader, and I could do a very good newsreader\'s voice. And it was quite convincing even though I knew nothing about current affairs or anything. Mostly from watching Sky News, if I\'m honest, I used to watch a lot of Sky News.

Dermot Whelan:I was fascinated with the way Sky News presenters spoke. I just thought, \"No one else speaks like that. But yet it seems normal.\" And it\'s still the same, that kind of Sky News. I used to do a bit of standup on Sky News presenters that if you wanted to talk like one the first half of your sentence must be very confident, but the second half isn\'t confident at all.

Dermot Whelan:So I could do impressions of newsreaders. But I remember a few weeks into the job I was reading the news and suddenly my throat started to close up, and I was like, \"What is happening?\" And I started to sound more like Yoda than a newsreader. And so my boss just reefed me out of the news studio and said, \"You\'re a reporter now.

Dermot Whelan:You\'re out on the streets, nowhere near a microphone.\" So I guess that was anxiety. That\'s a classic anxiety response, but I just always muddled through, and I always just presumed that everyone worried about stuff a lot and sweated and got embarrassed, and that was just the way it was.

Dermot Whelan:I didn\'t ever think that there were\... my stress response was overactive and, there were ways I could do to down-regulate. Just never crossed my mind, and nobody was really talking about it. And then fast-forward to 2007, I was, New to stand-up comedy, coming up through the ranks fairly quickly.

Dermot Whelan:As I mentioned it was still terrifying. I saw it like an extreme sport. I did a parachute jump once, and it was kinda like that, massive spike of adrenaline. You\'re dreading it all the way up, and then huge relief when it\'s over, and then have five pints to kinda bring your adrenaline levels down.

Dermot Whelan:But I was driving to a comedy festival, which was a big deal for me, and I ended up having a massive anxiety or panic attack, which I had never had before. I\'d obviously had symptoms of anxiety, but never a big wallop like that. And I remember pulling the car over. I felt like somebody was sitting on my belly and my chest.

Dermot Whelan:And the way I could describe it is I talk about it in Mindful. It\'s if someone had taken all my blood out of my body and then replaced it with that fuzz from the TV. You know if a TV isn\'t tuned to a channel? That\'s what it felt like. Instead of blood in my veins, it was just that sort of Poltergeist movie fuzz.

Dermot Whelan:And I remember I thought I was having a stroke or a heart attack. I even rang my wife from the side of the road to say goodbye \'cause I thought I was dying. And she just thought I was drunk. Because I couldn\'t talk properly because when your, the CO2 and oxygen levels get so skewey, your muscles start to cramp.

Dermot Whelan:And so my jaw cramped up and my tongue cramped, which meant I couldn\'t talk at all. So I\'m trying to tell her that I love her, and all she\'s hearing is like dah, duh, beh.\" So she didn\'t know what was happening. And somebody called an ambulance, and they brought me onto the ambulance, and I still thought at that point that I was leaving this Earth.

Dermot Whelan:And they handed me a very important life-saving piece of equipment called a brown paper bag. And that\'s what I needed \'cause I was hyperventilating. And I always remember as I was breathing into the bag, the feeling of relief as, my muscles were coming back to normal, the knowledge that I wasn\'t actually dying, and then an overwhelming smell of ham from the brown paper bag that I was breathing into.

Dermot Whelan:Because it was clearly not an official health service brown paper bag. It belonged to one of the paramedics, who clearly had his lunch in it before it came to me. That, was a big wake-up call for me. Lying at the side of the road thinking you\'re dying has a knack of waking you up to how you\'re navigating stress.

Dermot Whelan:So from that day forth, I started to get curious, at least curious about what was going on for me. What was my body trying to tell me? If I was gonna keep putting myself into stressful situations- How was I gonna navigate that stress? I\'d never really thought about it before, I just, like most of us, I was reaching for things that were demonstrated to me by the grown-ups around me when I was growing up.

Dermot Whelan:Cigarettes and alcohol , they were the stress management tools that I learned as a kid, so why would I not continue to do it? I think we can really beat ourselves up when we find ourselves reaching for sugar or alcohol or whatever it is. But that\'s what we learned, that\'s what we learned day in, day out as kids. Of course we\'d reach for that stuff if we don\'t know any better. Yeah. Beyond that then I stumbled into meditation, which I was very cynical about and things changed for me from there.

Adam Walker:That is remarkable, Donal. And while you were describing that and those symptoms, they\'re so similar to the ones that I experienced when I had my first panic attack as well.

Adam Walker:I also thought I was having a stroke. I thought I was having a heart attack. And I happened to be in a hospital when it happened. Because for me, what happened was I was called by my mum to the hospital. She said, \"You need to come to the hospital. Your dad\'s had a stroke.\" And as I was driving there, I felt this tension build in me.

Adam Walker:And when I got to the hospital and was directed to the room where I was told my dad was, I came to the room and there was no bed in the corner, and I thought I\'d got there too late. And exactly the same as you\'ve described, I had that jaw feeling and my fingers- \... went just, everything locked. And the next thing I remembered was waking up on this bed in the room down the corridor with an oxygen mask complimentary to your brown paper bag.

Adam Walker:Then there was a priest. And then a priest turned up and I was talking and crying, and the priest was telling me everything was gonna be okay. Now, I didn\'t imagine this. This was actually a real thing. This was not like a scene out of Father Ted. It- of all the

Dermot Whelan:people you would want to send to somebody who\'s just waking up after a medical incident it\'s not a priest. If you open your eyes, that\'s the first person you think, \"Oh my God, this is it. I\'m checking out.\" Exactly. Exactly. But, but- Send a clean- send a

Adam Walker:cleaner in. That would be better. It was so overwhelming. This happened to me in 2009. Mm-hmm. And it precipitated what I think we would both understand as being burnout and an overwhelm, and I didn\'t work for the next 18 months.

Adam Walker:That was the last day I worked for nearly 18 months, and it was a very slow recovery for me, \... through talking therapy, through medication Through enormous support from my family and my wife, bless her and supporting every aspect of rebuilding a life that could be functioning again, much the way that you described.

Adam Walker:And that\'s where I think perhaps for me there was that connection in the room, the aura that you gave out in the moment of the meditation. And when we came around the other side and we opened our eyes and you said, \"Is everyone okay?\" And I think I put my hand up and I said, \"Dermot, can I have a hug?\"

Adam Walker:And I came to the front and we hugged, and I was really overwhelmed in that moment. And just remembering it now, it was powerful. It was truly powerful. We build new structures into our world and into our lives that really support us going forward. And the irony of this, as you say, is just that the normal response would be alcohol, would be other things to distract.

Adam Walker:But actually, the reality is you need to go inside yourself. You need to go deeper and understand what\'s happening for you. And I think that\'s what you\'ve described and that\'s what you\'re describing for other people as well, isn\'t it?

Dermot Whelan:Yeah.

Dermot Whelan:It\'s about building a relationship with your own stress response.

Dermot Whelan:At the time of, I suspect for you, I don\'t want to speak for you, but, our incidents, our panic attacks, at that time I suspect both of us had no knowledge of our major stressors, how our bodies reacted to stress, how our thinking was influenced, what our breathing patterns were like day to day, how our sleep was affecting it, the impact of alcohol.

Dermot Whelan:These are all things that I had no clue about. So for me, it\'s really about getting curious about those things. How we respond to stress. What are the things that stress us out at the moment? Because it changes. And what stresses you out, Adam, may not stress me out, and vice versa.

Dermot Whelan:That will change over time. I, other things used to stress me out in the past that don\'t now. And it really depends on our life stages and all the ingredients of our life soup. So getting curious about those things. And then, taking on the idea that there are things we can do that our body is constantly talking to itself. Our brain is constantly listening for signals from our heart and our breathing and our diaphragm and all kinds of things. And for me it\'s quite simple. The more times I can tell my brain that I\'m safe, the easier my life will be, and I really think, demystifying that, When I talk to groups of people and they\'re like, \"Really? That\'s it?\" And you\'re like obviously, there\'s, deeper layers to this. But at a surface level, if you just want to navigate your life with a little bit more ease, the more you can tell your brain that you\'re safe, the easier everything will be, and I\'m always surprised at the lack of marketing around the, rest and digest state. We all know about fight or flight. It\'s drilled into us. Stress is bad, fight or flight. Stress is bad, fight or flight. There\'s an opposite state. It is called rest and digest. It was only after years of looking into this stuff that finally I was like, \"Oh, why didn\'t anyone tell me about this?\"

Dermot Whelan:This is a state that I can actually actively put myself into. Even in the length of just one breath, I can go in there. I call rest and digest Matthew McConaughey mode. All right.\" Who doesn\'t want to have more Matthew in their lives? And as soon as I learned that, I was like, oh, wow I have way more control over this stuff than I thought, than I was told.

Dermot Whelan:And my perception of stress was very narrow, and I think that is the same. I think stress has a terrible marketing team as well, because we are just constantly told, \"Stress is bad. It\'ll kill you. Stress is bad. It will kill you. Too much stress, you\'re gonna die.\" So when we do feel that sense of overload, and it\'s perfectly normal to have times in our life when we do feel a little bit overwhelmed, what compounds it is thinking, \"Oh my God, I\'m one of those guys.

Dermot Whelan:I\'m one of those people. I\'m just gonna be a big stress head, and I\'m gonna drop dead. It\'s gonna kill me.\" But what actually I learned, it\'s our perception of stress is the key to longevity and health. Now, obviously there\'s other elements, there\'s a great scientific study that came out of the University of Wisconsin in North Carolina, and it was started in the late \'90s, and it continued into the noughties.

Dermot Whelan:And they s- looked at over 30,000 Americans, and they asked them two questions: \"How much stress do you have in your life?\" and, \"Do you think stress is bad for you?\" And then they let them head off. And when they circled back to see how many of them were still alive, and they checked death records and all that, what they found was that if you said, \"I have a lot of stress in my life, and I think the stress is just bad for me it\'s a killer,\" those people were 46% more likely to die prematurely.

Dermot Whelan:Now, before anyone gets really depressed about my depressing statistic, the good news is that there was another group of people who said, \"Yes, I\'ve had a lot of stress in my life in the last year, but you know what? I think the stress can be helpful.\" I think stress has helped me achieve great things.

Dermot Whelan:I think it allows me to test myself, to see what I\'m made of. I just don\'t want too much of it. Those people outlived everybody in the study, including the people who tried to avoid stress altogether. And when I heard that scientific study, it was made famous by a TED Talk but it\'s also the focus of a really good book on stress as well.

Dermot Whelan:And when I looked into that and similar studies, I realized that, hang on a sec no one was telling me this either. Maybe there\'s a different way I could look at stress, because at that time, stress was just really bad. It looked like a panic attack, and if I felt it coming on like weather then I was in trouble, so I think as soon as we can appreciate that stress is doing a wonderful job for us, My body when I had the panic attack, and you too, our nervous systems were trying their best to help us. We had ignored every little signal they were sending, the kind of, \"Excuse me.\" It\'s like a child in the supermarket with their hand on their mother\'s trouser leg, and they\'re like Mommy.\"

Dermot Whelan:And we\'re like, \"Shh, I\'m talking now. Mommy\'s talking. Shh.\" Mommy.\" And eventually they fling themselves on the floor and roll around and have a tantrum. And our nervous systems will do that if we\'re not listening, and that\'s, I think, what you and I learned, was that just this slow buildup of stress and then something sends it over the edge.

Dermot Whelan:I had an interesting talk about panic attacks actually with a psychologist pal of mine, and whenever any one of her clients comes in and says, \"Oh, I had an anxiety attack,\" she says she\'s pretty sure that at least 90% of them, two things will be involved. One of them, and I know it\'s different for us, but they\'re generally sitting on the couch when they have their panic attack, and they have had a lot of alcohol sometime within the previous 48 hours.

Dermot Whelan:And so it\'s on a Monday or Tuesday that a lot of these happen, and they\'re sitting down watching, Home and Away, and suddenly they think they\'re dying. I just thought that was an interesting aside. And again, I guess sometimes we underestimate the impact that alcohol has on us days after we\'ve taken it.

Dermot Whelan:Our nervous system is still feeling that turbulence. So it\'s a very long answer to what you asked, but I think really- opening up the bonnet of your own personal car and seeing how your engine works is enormously helpful. Let me give you, if you don\'t mind, Adam I know you, you probably have another question, but can I just give you an example of what I\'m talking about in terms of the stress our own individual stressors, okay?

Dermot Whelan:And perhaps that these stressors, I call them peace pinchers uh, in my book, Busy and Wrecked. As I said, all of our stresses are different. It\'s personal. It\'s individual to us. But, oh, lovely, there it is, yeah. But sometimes it\'s the sneaky ones. It\'s things that you don\'t really understand.

Dermot Whelan:And the great thing about tech these days is we get a lot of that juicy data. And I love getting it. I love looking at all the graphs and everything. And I have a fitness tracker that has a stress monitor on it, and there was one particular week where I was doing a live show in front of 2,000 people in a theater, and I was looking at my stress response when I was on stage and how active my stress was.

Dermot Whelan:And actually, my stress was quite low on stage. And then I kept seeing these peaks in my stress monitor. I was like if it\'s, that\'s not me on stage, then what is that?\" It was me trying to leave the house in the morning. The stress caused by me not giving myself enough time in the morning was at least double me on stage performing in front of 2,000 people.

Dermot Whelan:So that was just a little example of that is a little peace pincher. That is an individual stressor for me, because I have a little bit of time blindness. I find time harder to deal with than a lot of people I know, so I have to work extra hard at it. And just the very act of not getting out of bed in time was setting me on a stress trajectory for the day.

Dermot Whelan:Because I was getting up, I was, \"Oh, God, look at the time. Oh, geez, I\'m gonna miss my train. Ah.\" And that buildup of cortisol and that activated stress response would then at least stay with me until lunchtime. So that was an individual stressor. So once I went, \"Oh, that\'s some interesting data.

Dermot Whelan:Okay, I\'m gonna get up earlier,\" it\'s not revolutionary, but it\'s just an example of getting to know your individual stressors. And what that does is introduces more ease into your day. And when we have more ease into our day, we\'re more curious, we\'re happier, we\'re better friends, we\'re better partners, we\'re better colleagues.

Dermot Whelan:And when you stack those little things on top of each other, again, not glamorous, you start to live with more ease, and you start to become like ringmaster of your stress response, you can get your stress response to do what you need it to do when you need it. But most importantly, when you don\'t need it, you need to be able to turn it off and move into that, all

Adam Walker:right.\"

Adam Walker:I wholeheartedly agree with you there, Dermot.

Adam Walker:And when you were talking about that, I was thinking about the things that we can control and the things that we have control over, and the internal noise that we have. But I\'m also reminded of Damon Albarn. Okay? Damon Albarn said modern life was rubbish.

Adam Walker:Is it that there are so many external pressures now, you know, in the palm of our hand for us, for our children, for everyone around us? We\'re constantly being triggered and reminded of things that either we haven\'t done or are stacking up in our to-do list, and we\'re being sideswiped all the time and interrupted into the things that historically we would\'ve just been able to get done, wouldn\'t we?

Adam Walker:I\'m just wondering what your perception is around how you control some of that noise. Because what I ended up doing was I slowed things down a lot and then built things back up, but very slowly and very intentionally. Now, not everyone can do that. Not everyone has the luxury of doing that.

Adam Walker:But also, not everyone, dare I say it, hits that place of burnout and rock bottom where they then build up again and say \"Well, what\'s serving me and what\'s not serving me?\" I\'d just love to know your thoughts around that, Dermot.

Dermot Whelan:Yeah, that\'s a great question, Adam. Definitely we live at a very unique time in history where our busyness and productivity is valued in a way that it never was.

Dermot Whelan:All through history a, a symbol of success was leisure. The people who were most wealthy and successful did the least amount of work. Other people did it for them. And they reckon in the \'70s that started to change. Particularly, even, I think even since COVID the sense of busyness has built up even more.

Dermot Whelan:It\'s like we all came bursting out of the gates after the pandemic, and the pace just never stopped. It just kept increasing. I like to point that out to, audiences I\'m working with because I don\'t think people fully appreciate the demands being made on their nervous system through that added sense of importance of productivity but also through the devices.

Dermot Whelan:There\'s a Harvard study from 2010 that shows that 47% of the time we\'re not thinking about what we\'re doing. Our minds are somewhere else. Now, that was obviously 16 years ago, so you can imagine how much more distracted we are now. So we just gotta bear that in mind and work a little bit harder to stay present and just be mindful of that- demand of that pull into distraction.

Dermot Whelan:But also there\'s a compassion piece to it, in that certainly when I was at my most stressed, I wasn\'t going, \"Hey, man, it\'s cool. You live in a very unique time in history, and, productivity is valued above everything else.\" I was just beating the crap out of myself in my mind, \"What the hell is wrong with you?

Dermot Whelan:Why do I feel so tired? Get it together. God, everyone else has their you know what together. Why can\'t you do it?\" We just tend to be really hard on ourselves, and as our stress res response amps up, the louder and harsher that voice in our own minds is gonna get.

Dermot Whelan:This is all backed up by science. Columbia Business School in the States, Silvia Bellezza is a professor there, and she has done an awful lot of work in the space of busyness and just actually looking at why our conversations have changed. I\'m sure your listeners can relate to that, phenomenon that in recent years in particular, the question in a conversation used to be, \"How are you?\"

Dermot Whelan:And the answer was, \"Fine, thanks,\" and, we\'d get on with our lives. Now, how are you?\" is answered with a 20-minute busyness tirade. \"Oh my God, don\'t talk to me. I\'m crazy busy. I\'m absolutely slammed. I don\'t know whether I\'m coming or going.\" And then people throw in that phrase that I\'m always fascinated with, which is, good busy.\"

Dermot Whelan:And I\'m like, \"Yeah, great. That sounds like a great nervous breakdown you\'re having for yourself there. Really good busy.\" And so you know what Professor Bellezza discovered that we are indeed infusing our conversations with busyness with examples of demonstrations of how busy I am.

Dermot Whelan:I\'m working so long that I\'ve no time for myself. And we do that to elevate our own social importance. By me telling you I\'m crazy busy, I\'m up the walls, I\'m absolutely slammed, what I\'m subconsciously saying to you is \"I\'m very important. I\'m a very important person,\" because that has been the big shift.

Dermot Whelan:If it was, the 1920s, the Downton Abbey crew, they\'d be boasting about how little work they were doing. That was, \"I\'m successful. I don\'t do anything. I\'m painting and I\'m horse riding and I\'m successful.\" Whereas now it\'s totally shifted. If I can demonstrate to you that I have no personal time, I do\...

Dermot Whelan:Even if I\'m visibly unhappy about it , This is the merry dance we\'re in, and the science backs it up. I\'m, we are subconsciously or unconsciously saying to each other, \"I\'m terribly busy and I\'m so important.\" If you wanna put this to the test and see just how much value we attach to busyness- Next time you\'ll notice that people dish out busyness as a compliment as well.

Dermot Whelan:\"How are you doing? Great. God, you seem so busy. You\'re fantastic.\" Next time someone says that to you and compliments you on how busy you are, just say, \"No, I\'m not busy.\" Just see what happens when you tell someone you\'re not busy. If they say are you busy?\" \"No.\" The conversation will end there because they just don\'t know what to do.

Dermot Whelan:You can just say I just sit on the couch all day and I\'m eating Doritos. That\'s me now.\" And we don\'t like that. We\'re not comfortable with that, with anyone who says that they\'re not particularly busy. That\'s where we are.

Dermot Whelan:So I think when we can understand that, we might have a little bit more compassion for ourselves in terms of, just going easier in our own minds that this is a tough time to be alive in terms of the demands on our nervous systems.

Adam Walker:It really does feel like that, and I think I learned from your talk and from your books that, people definitely wear busyness as a badge of honor.

Adam Walker:And after I\'d seen- \... that presentation that you gave, I then saw it everywhere, and I couldn\'t unsee it. And I see it everywhere. And as I say, I deliberately try and slow things down. I\'m not always great at it. And usually when my kids are involved, they\'re the variable that I can\'t control.

Adam Walker:They\'re both at university now. And when they\'re home, it\'s pretty chaotic. When they\'re not here, it\'s similarly chaotic because they still need things even though they\'re in different places. So it\'s quite curious, isn\'t it, that there are such demands put upon us outside of our control, external to us?

Adam Walker:I happen to know that you\'ve just come back from Nepal, Dermot, and I\'d love to hear some of your experiences around that because that resonates for me in the fact that I think I\'m gonna put some words in your mouth, but I think it was about slowing down but also understanding a little bit more about yourself.

Adam Walker:But perhaps you can tell me more about that, because that\'s a fascinating choice that you\'ve made and I wonder how that came about.

Dermot Whelan:Yeah I, you\'re right. I got back a couple of weeks ago. It was a 16-day trip to Everest Base Camp. There was about six of us on the group. One of them was my pal, and the others were wonderful strangers, two UK lads actually, who I had a great time with.

Dermot Whelan:And yeah it\'s a tough challenge. I don\'t necessarily know why I want to do these kinds of trips. My wife is like, \"Why are you doing this again?\" I was like, \"I don\'t know.\" I ventured to the top of Kilimanjaro a couple of years ago, and, I think it just ties into that conversation we were having about stress.

Dermot Whelan:I\'m always intrigued to see how I will navigate being out of my comfort zone, and something that\'s always been in me, I think, but I find that a trip like that is like a hard f- factory reset on your phone. We all fall into these grooves of, \"Oh, God, I gotta do this thing,\" and complaining about stuff we see on the news and, something like that just shakes you out of those grooves those mental and emotional grooves. And when you do get up into the heights of the Himalayas, you realize life is very hard and simple up there, there\'s no cars. It\'s yaks, when I glanced into the open doorways of a lot of the houses in the villages, one thing really struck me, and it was like, \"Oh my God, they have no stuff.\"

Dermot Whelan:You\'d look in and they have things they need, cooking utensils, tables, chairs, and that, but there\'s the clutter that we all have in our own lives, it just isn\'t in there. And I\'m not glorifying, how they live. It\'s a tough life. But again, a trip like that just forces you out of those things, that sense of taking things for granted.

Dermot Whelan:It\'s I guess it dials you back into your values, what is really important to you, what matters. And I know that when I came back, I was so grateful for everything that I had, and particularly the people that I have, and I think any trip like that if any of your listeners have done something like that, a lot of people do the Camino and things like this, it just resets things,

Adam Walker:I would wholeheartedly agree with that. And as you mentioned Camino, I\'ve gotta put a shout-out to my best mate and my best man, Jim, because when I saw him last weekend, him and his son Jake did the Camino a couple of years ago, and I couldn\'t help but notice when he was at the barbecue, he had a shell on his calf.

Adam Walker:And I was like, \"What\'s that?\" And he said it\'s the emblem of the Camino. Anyway, he\'s also got some other rather interesting- Mm \...\... tattoos that he\'s had in his later years. But bless him, I just needed to mention him at this point because he\'ll definitely be listening to this.

Adam Walker:Dermot, you\'ve been incredibly generous with your time, and at this point in the conversation, I always like to conclude with a quick-fire round. Sure. And I\'m just wondering, what is the one piece of advice that you would give to your younger self?

Dermot Whelan:That\'s a wonderful question. And I think that sometimes we look at our younger selves through rose-tinted glasses, that if an older version of ourselves came back in time to give us some key nugget of advice, that we would be listening, like a teenage girl from a 1950s movie lying on the bed, with just eyes wide open.

Dermot Whelan:\"Please give me this wonderful nugget of wisdom from the future.\" The reality is, I wouldn\'t have listened to me. If I went back and gave my younger self a bit of advice, I wouldn\'t listen. I wasn\'t in a place to hear it, I would\'ve said, \"Oh, whatever,\" if I started going back in time and talking about, \"Hey, man, just get to know your stress response\" and I would\'ve just said, \"Fine, I\'m going for a pint.\"

Dermot Whelan:That would\'ve been me. So I guess I might say, \"Look, I understand you like enjoying yourself, and you like the old partying, but, why don\'t you get curious. Get curious about the things that are going on for you, life can be a little bit easier if you just start to get to know yourself a little bit.

Dermot Whelan:You don\'t have to live like a monk, but just at least get curious about these experiences you\'re having in terms of, the sweating and the embarrassment and the struggle,\" it\'s the kind of social struggle that I had. So yeah, I think I would say, \"Look, get curious.

Dermot Whelan:There are things you can do. Doesn\'t have to be like this. Life can be easier.\" But I know I wouldn\'t have listened.

Adam Walker:I love that. What are the top three qualities you value most in people?

Dermot Whelan:I guess I\'m gonna keep going on about curiosity. It sounds like I\'m obsessed, but I just love people who go, \"What if?\" I love what if people. What if we did it this way? \'Cause to me, that speaks so much.

Dermot Whelan:That\'s someone who\'s not in defensive mode. It\'s someone who\'s not in a stress state. They\'re in this frontal part of their brain, that\'s where our curiosity lives. So I\'ve had the most fun and Fulfilling work experiences with people who are curious, who just think

Dermot Whelan:A little bit more what if, a sense of play, so playfulness is really important to me. It\'s something that since I left the radio I\'m trying to work back into my life in other ways, \'cause I realized\... My wife one day was like, \"I think you\'re getting too serious,\" playfulness is really important to me.

Dermot Whelan:Someone who can see the humor in things, particularly at a time when you need it. We all have those times in work in particular where, things are getting serious, and people are giving out, and there\'s a maybe cynicism around, a bit of sarcasm. And just there\'s that person who\'s just able to step back and laugh at themselves or laugh at the situation, and it\'s just a great tool, and we just wanna be around those people.

Dermot Whelan:And, I guess authenticity is important as well. You want to feel like when you\'re with somebody, you\'re getting the realest version of them, that you can. I think that\'s they would be my top three picks.

Adam Walker:Thank you, Dermot. That\'s very kind of you to elaborate on those.

Adam Walker:What is your favorite thing outside of work? And I\'m not gonna lead you into this on the topic of play, but I did hear that you got a skateboard.

Dermot Whelan:Yeah. I have several skateboards as classic midlife embarrassing as that is. But it was something that I actually took up during the pandemic, because I was buying my son a skateboard, and I suddenly was in the skate shop, and I was like, \"Oh my God, I remember being in a skate shop with my parents.\"

Dermot Whelan:And I couldn\'t make up my mind about which skateboard I wanted. And that\'s, that little bit of anxiousness, that bit of oh God, what if I pick the wrong one, and I remember we left, and I didn\'t get any. And here I was back living through my son , and I was like, \"Do you know what? I think I\'d really like a skateboard.\"

Dermot Whelan:So I got one for myself, and then I got into electric skateboards, and it\'s just a beautiful way of getting out of my head, and I think your listeners probably have something in their mind. It might be golf, or it might be the gym, or running, or, taking the dog for a walk, something that just gets you out of your head.

Dermot Whelan:And for me, when you\'re on a skateboard, and, the one I have is a fairly serious one, and it goes about 40 kilometers an hour. When you\'re on that, you can- Aren\'t be thinking about the email that you sent earlier on because you\'re thinking about staying upright and alive. So I think it\'s just a really cool there\'s a term in psychology of psychological detachment, which is very relevant these days because with hybrid working scenarios and different working setups for people do find it a lot harder to switch off.

Dermot Whelan:And it\'s about how do I get that psychological detachment, that real detachment from work, so that when I turn up again, I\'m more effective and I\'m feeling like I got a break. And on a little side note, something I, really think is helpful to me and helpful to other people, two psychologists in 2016 in Germany came up with the DRAMA a- acronym.

Dermot Whelan:So it\'s D-R-A-M-A. And just very quickly but I, it\'s a great filter to run the stuff that you do outside of work through, and skateboarding absolutely fits this. And I used to wonder, \"Why do I feel so good after doing it?\" And because it was actually ticking a lot of these boxes. The D is for detachment, okay?

Dermot Whelan:So something that\'s unrelated to your job. Meditation is a great tool for that. But clearly I was detaching through skateboarding. The R is relaxation. I\'m not sure how relaxing it is, so maybe that one isn\'t too involved in this particular one. But again, if you wanna just look after the D and R, the detachment and relaxation, mindfulness and meditation is a great tool.

Dermot Whelan:But let\'s continue. A is autonomy, so something for yourself, okay? So our nervous systems like when we do something outside of work for ourselves, right? We\'re not, on someone else\'s uh, we\'re not doing stuff for our kids or our boss or whatever it is. So obviously skateboarding is something for me, and it\'s clearly tied to my childhood and everything.

Dermot Whelan:So then we got our two Ms. One of them is mastery, so learning a new skill. So this is why people have workshops out in man caves and all these kinds of things. So when we\'re learning a new skill, we\'re using our brains in a different way, and it\'s giving that work part of our brain a break.

Dermot Whelan:The other M is meaning, so something that adds a sense of purpose to your life. So for instance, I have friends who go and do a lot of kids coaching. They\'ll coach sports teams after already very busy day, and maybe they\'re doing it five nights a week, and I have one pal that does it, and I was like, \"Why do you do this?\"

Dermot Whelan:And he\'s \"I don\'t know, but I just love it.\" And because he\'s getting a sense of meaning and purpose, you\'re helping kids develop their skills and talents, and that\'s something that obviously gives him. So that\'s another thing that we can do. And I guess for me, I\'ve always had a sense of adventure.

Dermot Whelan:That\'s kind of one of my values. So I feel like, there\'s a bit of purpose in there of exploring these other parts of myself. And then the last A is affiliation. It doesn\'t quite fit for my skateboarding, but affiliation is doing stuff for other people or with other people. And this is particularly poignant for anyone who maybe works alone on their laptop quite a bit, or maybe they\'re in manufacturing and they\'re at a particular station and they\'re not particularly mixing with people throughout the day.

Dermot Whelan:The affiliation piece, doing something with other people, that could be a gym class or whatever it happens to be, that\'s another one. So that\'s the DRAMA. So we\'ve got detachment we\'ve got relaxation, we\'ve got autonomy, we\'ve got meaning, we\'ve got mastery, and we\'ve got affiliation. I find that really helpful for just checking that the things I\'m doing when I\'m not working, are they actually down-regulating that nervous system?

Dermot Whelan:Are they actually helping me to psychologically detach? Because sometimes we might plonk down in front of the TV, we watch a documentary on a murder, and then we wonder why we don\'t feel better after it. Because it may not be ticking the boxes that you need. Now, maybe for some people it does, but I guarantee you if your listeners have a little think about the stuff that they do and maybe I could ask you, Adam, is there something that you like to do when you\'re not working that you just feel better after, that you feel like you\'ve psychologically detached? And I wonder, are you ticking any of those boxes that I mentioned?

Adam Walker:Yeah. So for me, it\'s walking my dogs, and sometimes I\'ll listen to a podcast.

Adam Walker:Sometimes I won\'t. But it\'s definitely beyond a certain point. So we have this little walk next to our house. We live on a bridal way. And my wife will say to me, \"Take the dogs up, down, and round.\" There\'s a little retirement village just next to our house here. Now, that up, down, and round doesn\'t get it going enough for me.

Adam Walker:I need to be doing it for long enough. So it\'s gotta be 35, 40-plus minutes, and then I get into a flow state and everything just feels lighter, and that\'s the time when I listen to the birds. I\'m looking around me. I\'m absolutely, aligned internally and externally and feel part of something that\'s not built.

Adam Walker:I feel small, I feel insignificant, and as I say, I come back just feeling lighter. And often my wife will say to me, \"B,\" by the way, she will often say to me, \"You just need to go and have a walk.\" Just go for an hour. Just lose yourself with the dogs. Come back in an hour \'cause I know I can deal with you then.

Adam Walker:I can\'t deal with you now. And she will often say that to me, and she is, my barometer of what I need very much. As it sounds like your wife might well be as well.

Dermot Whelan:Yes. They always know. They know when we\'re at our best and at our worst, so yeah.

Dermot Whelan:But I think, just to circle back to something you were saying, in the world that we live in and the demands being made on our nervous systems, that you walking the dogs can seem quite insignificant.

Dermot Whelan:You may not actively write that into your calendar on your phone. That\'ll be for the important meetings and the Teams calls and the Zooms calls and all that. But they\'re the things that we absolutely, in today\'s world, need to ring-fence and protect. That is key for you. I see it like that Jenga game, the tower. That is one of your foundational blocks on your own Jenga tower, and those are the things that we need to lean into, they\'re the things that are non-negotiable, but generally speaking, they\'re the first things that we\'re gonna give the elbow to if something seemingly more, in air quotes, important comes in, you\'re thinking, are you around for that call? Could you jump on a Zoom at that time?\" And you\'re thinking I was gonna walk the dog, but yeah, fine.\" And we immediately give it up, and we don\'t appreciate the significance of those things that are for ourselves that are helping us to psychologically detach.

Dermot Whelan:\'Cause when you do turn up for that next Zoom call, you\'ll be effective. You\'ll be present. You\'ll be ready to work, yeah. We need to protect those things and keep walking our dogs, that\'s for sure.

Adam Walker:They\'d be very upset if I wasn\'t walking them. Yeah. In fact, one of them\'s scratching on the door right now.

Adam Walker:Finally, Dermot, what is your number one golden rule in life and in business?

Dermot Whelan:My number one rule in life and in business. You know what? It has changed a lot over the years, but right now, for me, it is- Check in with your heart.

Dermot Whelan:I never appreciated what an incredible guidance system our heart is, and it can sound so fluffy and woo, and I know possibly some of your listeners are like, \"Oh, here we go. He\'s gonna start banging a tambourine now and chanting.\" And it\'s so funny, isn\'t it? It\'s one of the words in a corporate setting I avoid is the heart.

Dermot Whelan:You can tell a group of people, \"Put your hand over your belly,\" and they go, \"Oh, okay.\" But if you said, \"Take a hand and place it over your heart,\" I\'ve now lost half the room. And it\'s so strange that we have this sort of a disregard or a lack of appreciation for the heart as something other than just a pump, or if we do refer to it in another way, it\'s fluffy.

Dermot Whelan:I run everything through here, and all that is just bringing my attention from my head down into my heart for it could be even 10 seconds. But if there\'s some decision I\'m gonna make, if I want some insights, if I need to just connect with any sense of importance of anything that I\'m doing, I have to run it through here.

Dermot Whelan:The brain is a great servant of the heart, but that\'s all it is. Everything\'s coming from here. So for me at the moment, connecting in here is massive. And I think we\'re only just tapping into the potential that our heart has to offer. I think it\'s been overlooked as a guidance system.

Dermot Whelan:And God knows we need a bit more heart in the world today.

Adam Walker:I couldn\'t agree with you more on that, Dermot.

Adam Walker:I\'m just wondering, before we conclude, would it be possible just to finish with that 16-second meditation? Because I think that would be really powerful, and then I think we will be in the calmest place, and we can check in with our hearts.

Dermot Whelan:Absolutely. So this is a 16-second meditation. Sometimes it\'s called box breathing or square breathing. The Navy SEALs call it tactical breathing, which sounds way cooler. But it\'s the same thing. And remember, all we\'re trying to do with any of these things is send a little signal to our brain- That we\'re safe.

Dermot Whelan:And a Lot of the time is enough. It could mean your presentation goes better, the difficult conversation goes better whatever event in your day the evening time at home with your family goes better. Just that little reset, and 16 seconds a lot of the time is all we need. So we\'re gonna breathe in for four, we\'re gonna hold for four, we\'re gonna let that breath go for four, and then we\'re gonna hold again for four.

Dermot Whelan:I\'ll sneak an extra one in. We\'ll do two in a row just \'cause that\'s helps people get into a little bit of a rhythm. So I want you this time, we\'re not gonna go towards the heart. We\'re just gonna go to our belly because we wanna get that diaphragm moving, and that\'s a little signal that we\'re safe, okay?

Dermot Whelan:So when we breathe in, we expand our belly. And when we breathe out, the belly drops back down. So here we go. Breathing in for four. So breathing in, two, three, four. Hold, two, three, four. Out, two, three, four. Hold, two, three, four. In, two, three, four. Hold, two, three, four. Out, two, three, four. And hold, two, three, four.

Dermot Whelan:And now just breathing normally. All right. There\'s your 16 seconds. Pull it out in your toolkit and bust it out any time you\'re about to have that difficult conversation or you wanna just calm down before bedtime or you want the best version of you turning up for work.

Adam Walker:Derek, I cannot thank you enough for today, for this conversation, and for everything that you bring to wellbeing, and opening the understanding that I have in my toolkit to check in with oneself.

Adam Walker:Meeting you drove me to greater things, but also this podcast came out of many things that you talked about in that time, in that presentation. And I cannot tell you how much it means for me to be talking to you today, and to be able to put this episode out there, Derek.

Adam Walker:And once again, I just really want to thank you for taking the time in being so generous with your time with me today. And I know you\'re a very busy chap, and when I was looking at all the things that you\'ve done and achieved and all of those things, what I was reminded of was the fact that after I lost my dad, you sent me this lovely book in the post, and you wrote a very personal card and note to me, and that meant the world.

Adam Walker:You took time. You led with kindness. You didn\'t have to do that for me, Derek, and I\'ll never forget that. The fact that you\'re wearing orange as well today- is incredibly important. Orange is the color that connects me with my darling sister, Naomi, who no longer is with us. But I knew as soon as you turned up and you were wearing orange today-

Adam Walker:this was only gonna go in one direction. So once again, it\'s just been such a delight, Dermot. And if I can ask you one small favor, could you see if you can get Cillian Murphy to come on the podcast, please?

Dermot Whelan:I can\'t even get Cillian on the end of a phone. He\'s a busy man. For your listeners who don\'t know, we go back an awful long way, before he was famous, and definitely before he had an Oscar on his mantelpiece.

Dermot Whelan:But I\'m always grateful to him because he introduced me to my beautiful wife, Carina. So without Cillian Murphy, we wouldn\'t have amazing movies like Oppenheimer, but I would also be single. I\'m very grateful to him. But I\'ll do my best. I\'ll get in touch with his people and see if they come back.

Dermot Whelan:But look, Adam, thank you so much. Look I really appreciate what you do. I love that we\'ve kept in touch since that talk that day. And I will never forget that hug. That was really powerful for me, and I really appreciated you just sharing that vulnerability, not to sound too American about it but I really did appreciate you, sharing what you were going through with me, and it was lovely for me to see that what I do and what I was doing was having an impact.

Dermot Whelan:Thank you, my friend, and I\'m looking on in awe with all the wonderful changes that you\'ve made and the kind of things you\'re doing. So keep up the great work.

Adam Walker:Thank you, Dermot, from the bottom of my heart. It\'s been an absolute delight.

Dermot Whelan:Amazing. Thanks, Adam. Have a great day.