Evoke Greatness Podcast

Mind, Body & Leadership with Brynn Scarborough (Part 1)

• Episode 156

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🎧 Episode 156: Mind, Body & Leadership with Brynn Scarborough

In this inspiring episode, Brynn Scarborough, President and CEO of JK Products & Services North America, shares her journey as a tech-forward wellness innovator and passionate advocate for women in leadership. From her decade-long commitment to red light therapy to her insights on creating psychological safety for women leaders, Brynn offers valuable wisdom for both personal wellness and professional growth.

We explore:
* The revolutionary benefits of red light therapy for cell turnover and recovery
* How the wellness technology industry has evolved and become democratized post-COVID
* The importance of creating psychological safety for teams during rapid change
* Practical approaches to incorporating wellness into busy professional lives
* The critical lack of female role models in leadership positions
* Common manifestations of imposter syndrome in mid-career women
* The power of incremental changes in building sustainable wellness habits
* The neurological impact of positive self-talk and "I am" statements

🔑 Key takeaways:
1. Red light therapy improves cell efficiency and turnover, with applications ranging from inflammation reduction to recovery
2. The democratization of wellness research has made advanced therapies more accessible
3. Small, consistent habit changes can transform your wellness baseline over time
4. Psychological safety is essential for team adaptation during unpredictable times
5. Women should embrace mentorship opportunities without waiting to feel "ready"
6. Changing negative self-talk is crucial for overcoming imposter syndrome
7. Mental fitness requires the same intentional training as physical fitness

💡 Quotes to remember:
"I always like to lead my backstory with just the fact that I'm an unlikely leader. And I love to invest and grow unlikely leaders." - Brynn Scarborough

"We have to be aware that what people are carrying in their backpacks, whether physically or emotionally, is much heavier than it was before." - Brynn Scarborough

"The brain doesn't know the difference between your intention and reality. Speaking in 'I am' statements out loud to yourself is powerful." - Brynn Scarborough

🌟 Featured Insights:
* How NASA originally developed red light therapy technology in the 1970s
* The importance of treating wellness as an experiment with incremental improvements 
* Why mental fitness should be approached with the same dedication as physical fitness
* The transformative power of serving as a "mirror" to reflect others' potential

📚 Connect with Brynn:
* LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brynnscarborough
* Email: brynn@jkamerica.com

A rising tide raises all ships, and I invite you along on this journey to Evoke Greatness!

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Speaker 1:

Welcome to Evoke Greatness. We are officially entering year three of this podcast and I am filled with so much gratitude for each and every one of you who've joined me on this incredible journey of growth and self-discovery. I'm Sunny, your host and fellow traveler on this path of personal evolution. This podcast is a sanctuary for the curious, the ambitious and the introspective. It's for those of you who, like me, are captivated by the champion mindset and driven by an insatiable hunger for growth and knowledge. Whether you're just beginning your journey or you're well along your path, you're going to find stories here that resonate with your experiences and aspirations. Over the last two years, we've shared countless stories of triumph and challenge, of resilience and transformation. We've laughed, we've reflected and we've grown together. And as we've evolved, so too has this podcast. Remember, no matter what chapter you're on in your own story, you belong here. This community we've built together is a place of support, inspiration and shared growth. Where intention goes, energy flows, and the energy you bring to this space elevates us all. So, whether you're listening while commuting, working out or enjoying your morning coffee, perhaps from one of those motivational mugs I'm so fond of, know that you're a part of something special. Thank you for being here. Thank you for your curiosity, your openness and your commitment to personal growth. As we embark on year three, I invite you to lean in, to listen deeply and to let these stories resonate with your soul. I believe that a rising tide raises all ships and I invite you along in this journey to evoke greatness.

Speaker 1:

Welcome back to another episode of Evoke Greatness. My guest today is Bryn Scarborough, a true powerhouse in the tech-forward wellness and a fierce advocate for women in leadership. As president and CEO of JK Products and Services North America, bryn is revolutionizing health and wellness through innovative technologies, but her impact goes far beyond business success. She's a dedicated mentor, empowering mid-career women to break barriers and reach new heights in their professional journeys. Bryn's own story, from leading a team of 35, scaling that up to 70, exemplifies her leadership philosophy Ambitious women paired with authentic empowerment. Today, we'll explore Brynn's insights on wellness, innovation, women's leadership and creating environments where ambition and authenticity thrive. Get ready for a conversation that will inspire you to elevate both your well-being and your leadership, brynn welcome to the show.

Speaker 2:

Thank you so much.

Speaker 1:

I'm so happy to be here yeah, excited to have you on. I'd love for you to share, as we step into this, a little bit more about your backstory. How did you make your way to this intersection of wellness therapy and empowering women in leadership?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 2:

You know, I always like to lead my backstory with just the fact that I'm an unlikely leader right, and I love to invest and grow up unlikely leaders, not just like myself, but ones that might not have thought that this was the life path in front of them, and so I ended up getting involved with health and wellness almost two decades ago.

Speaker 2:

There's some, like a lot of us, through some personal hormone issues and things like that, wasn't really getting the answers that I felt like I wanted or I needed, and so just began the journey of learning to take my health into my own hands and, as we've been speaking about, you know, creating intersections between personal and professional passion has just grown over time. I learned that I have a true passion for academia and so pursuing my doctorate in an aligned space of leadership, resilience, and then also in this world of technology and wellness that is just exploding and intersecting with multiple different types of application, from longevity to recovery to anti-aging all of these worlds are coming together. I just realized that, you know, I don't have to leave any parts of myself behind anymore, which is a really incredible place to be, and definitely advocating that for others as well.

Speaker 1:

I love that and I think so many people are trying to explore that path. Like, what does that look like? Before we hit the record button, we were talking about being multi-passionate and we have these things that really light our fire. And how do we learn to embrace these things? We're not having to just do them one at a time. So I love that. Your story kind of will walk us into a lot of what your focus is nowadays. You've been at the forefront of wellness technology, particularly with red light therapy. Let's talk through the benefits of this therapy and how is it revolutionizing cell turnover and recovery.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, you know I have been dedicated to red light for more than a decade now. Jk actually was one of maybe the first. I don't want to make the claim, but we were definitely very, very early out there in the red light space specifically for total body application. Almost 15 years ago we came out with the first unit. This was before the conversation was ready, right, consumers were not ready to have this conversation. Businesses were not ready to talk about this type of technology or applying, you know, this type of technology, and so over time I've gotten to watch kind of the red light story and red light development happen.

Speaker 2:

This is a technology that was originally developed by NASA back in the 70s to help astronauts be able to adapt to an anti-gravity environment and also kind of help inflammation stay down in the body, those types of things. And so the easiest way to explain what red light does is that it fuels ATP and cell turnover. So anytime your cells are running more efficiently, turning over more efficiently, you know apoptosis is happening more efficiently, so killing off, you know, outliers and freeloaders in the space. This is a positive thing and it has a lot of effects depending on how you want to use red light and how you want to kind of put it to work in your freeloaders in the space. This is a positive thing and it has a lot of effects depending on how you want to use red light and how you want to kind of put it to work in your own lifestyle regimen.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and thinking back, like that used to, that used to be, you'd have to go somewhere to be able to access that type of therapy, and I think that industry has grown so much so and the access has really opened up. I know, I think it was last year I ended up getting this full-body PEMF mat, red light, neck and face therapy that I can do at home. What has that journey looked like from your side of things as you think back to? You know early in that decade ago, what it looked like then to now, where it's so accessible to the person at home.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, that's right. A few really important things have happened, I think, with COVID and even with some of the more vocal influencers and podcasters and things like that in the space in the last five years. It's just accelerated in a way that has allowed the public to become a lot more aware of legitimate research behind a lot of these modalities and also allowing for more legitimate research to be done outside of the three or four traditional spaces that would normally house that, and that's been an incredible shift. So I think that's really fueling this consumer awareness and consumer appetite for things that used to be way out on the fringe and really difficult to get information about or there was just not much information. We're just kind of an information overload at this point, so we have to exercise our discernment skills and learn more about you know some of these things and what delineates quality versus you know other types of products, but the democratization of this information has been incredibly important. The other thing is is, I think, kind of one of the macro trends that's driving this is post-COVID we all, at least, were more open to, let's say, alternative conversations about health and wellness ways that we can, you know, reinforce our own bodies and lifestyles so that we are not as at risk in a global pandemic situation.

Speaker 2:

Right, I think we all became aware of risk factors that general population probably wasn't thinking about very much up until this point, and it's really fed this consumer appetite to try and to be willing to explore and to approach with curiosity, which is amazing. Yeah, and don't get me wrong, I have an entire closet full of gadgets. Some of them are great, some of them not. I like to try everything, but there's certain things like red light, like contrast, like lymphatic drainage, that are just kind of becoming core technologies, and red light is really one of those. It's one of the most well-studied modalities out there besides contrast, and so people are just have had a lot more access to the knowledge and are a lot more willing to receive it at this point.

Speaker 1:

Right, and I think about the reason that I got it. I have Hashimoto's and so I have inflammation in my body at all times and it's to that point where I can feel it, and so a lot of that was driven by again that cell repair, but also like this anti-inflammation treatment that I could do at home. And what's really interesting is I originally got it for myself. I had ended up posting this on Instagram. My dog, I have a Frenchie, and they are really well known for having this called IBDD, and essentially it's where they have these spinal issues, where they end up becoming paralyzed in their back legs All of a sudden my dog had this going on and I was like, oh my gosh, I don't know what to do, don't necessarily want to take her in for this horrible surgery.

Speaker 1:

Oftentimes it's not effective, and so I looked up a few things that other people had done around on more that kind of naturopathic side of things Like what can I do from home. I ended up putting my dog on the PEMF mat and full body red light therapy three times a day and within about two weeks my dog was completely fine walking around again, and so we do that on a regular basis now, and so the really cool part about it is is it's not just for those people who, it's not for the rich and famous right Like we can do this, and it's practical therapy for a multitude of things.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I I have said this as often as I can talk about it in the wellness space is that for those of us who are in the wellness world, we kind of get blinders on and think everybody has the level of access that we have or everybody's got the level of ability to go and try these things, and that's not necessarily true. Like I always like to bring it back to, doesn't matter who you are, you can take a cold shower. Doesn't matter who you are, you can get morning sunlight and then scale from there right Based on level of interest. But you're so right that we're beginning to see kind of cross-sectional applications for some of these technologies. I think PEMF and cavitation might have even been developed in horses to help racehorses treat.

Speaker 2:

Now, don't quote me on that, that's not scientific. But I'm just remembering when I saw these technologies for the first time and was asking where they came from and it was, you know, treating high level, you know racehorses and that type of thing for inflammation. So it really is amazing. I feel like if you kind of follow the health and wellness information out there, you know no-transcript addressing that. But we've got to come at it from more than one direction.

Speaker 1:

And sure, in this industry you have witnessed just rapid changes in innovation, not even, of course, in the last decade, but probably even in the last handful of years, as you mentioned, like post-COVID. How do you stay adaptable and ensure that even your leadership style just evolves and grows as the industry changes.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it has been a period of rapid, rapid change, high levels of unpredictability right, I've said for a couple of years now, like the crystal ball has gotten really cloudy over the last couple of years. Your ability to predict, to forecast, to make a plan and not pivot 12 times and it really does, at least for me come down to creating an environment where you can try things safely and fail safely, because we've all had to fail a lot since COVID, sometimes at rapid pace, to figure out you know how you're even going to get the office open or adapt to an incredibly fast changing environment. So it really is an environment of psychological safety and then being able to treat it almost like an experiment, like we're going to learn so much during these years. Like you talk to any leader, you talk to any person you know responsible for a team, they'll tell you they've gotten a lifetime of experience in the last five to seven years and it's unlikely that our kids are going to lead through a global pandemic. I hope it had been a century since that had happened before. So it's just really kind of given us a highly condensed version, now processing that and getting through to the other side can be a whole different story as well.

Speaker 2:

21, that what people are carrying in in their backpacks, whether that's physically or emotionally or remotely, is much heavier than it was before all of this started. Everyone's coming in with less bandwidth. They're coming in with more stress, more anxiety. Daycare is closed, parents are sick. You know, it's hitting us on all fronts. So just being aware of that and being able to kind of create a space even if that's at work to say I can take the backpack off for a few minutes and know what to expect for a little while but yeah, it's been an incredibly challenging time for leaders. You know, sometimes there's this idea like somehow we have the answer when in reality we're getting information at the exact same time everyone else is getting it. We just have to run out in front and make a plan and do that with our teams, and so it's been an incredibly challenging time. But it's also been a time where we've been able to build up a lot of resilience and build up a massive amount of learning in a very short period.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, how do you? A lot of my audience is senior and executive level women inside of the corporate space. How would you guide them in focusing on being able to weave both personally and professionally in with this wellness side of things, where you know we incorporate that lifestyle and longevity? How can they meld those two together?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I love this question because this is a lot of the space. There's a few things that I really like to focus on, especially for the woman who is caretaker mother, daughter, sister, boss, director, leader. You know many, many hats when, in reality and I think we've all learned this as we've ascended through our 20s and 30s that running until the you know car is falling apart, out of gas and out of maintenance doesn't work anymore. We have to come up with better systems to keep the baseline higher and so that that baseline is at a sustainable place, not only for our own mental health and happiness, but so that we've got something to give right.

Speaker 2:

You reach a point where you can't give into a deficit anymore without it affecting your health, your mental health, all of these things. And so I always try to start from a very pragmatic perspective, Like can we raise your baseline, step count, Something as simple as that. Where can we stack a habit? Because, if you're like me or you're like most type A leaders out there, you can put together a plan and say, all right, tomorrow morning I'm going to start this 10-day cleanse. Everything's going to be different. But in reality, that's not how our habits work and that's not how behavior change works, and so for women, who can be incredibly hard on themselves as well, it's really about continuing to raise the baseline and as you do that over time James Clear talks about this in Atomic Habits.

Speaker 2:

He's like you know you make the one degree change and over the course of a year, you realize you've changed the entire trajectory of maybe your health and wellness, maybe how you feel, mentally showing up, or your ability to recharge and reconnect, and so I really I don't necessarily say, okay, here's the protocol that you need to follow, because, honestly, it's different for everyone. There's some staples that I really love, but it's really about focusing on things that you can habit stack, starting out, and that you know it's not going to be perfect, Accepting the fact that transitioning into this or making health and wellness more of a priority could be something little as five minutes a day, but you're going from zero to something, and that's a massive, massive change. So accepting those incremental steps in between is so important.

Speaker 1:

Celebrating those micro wins, right? Sometimes, when we're making these little steps, it feels we minimize it and we think, okay, well, you know, it's just this little increment that I'm stepping into, but really celebrate those wins Because, to your point, when you're making that 1% shift every single day, when you look back in the course of a year, your life has completely been transformed. And so celebrate and think along the way, give yourself that worthy credit.

Speaker 2:

That's right. I think the other piece of this is you know, we talked about the backpack earlier and we're seeing an incredible need for central nervous system downregulation, for obvious reasons. Right, we are overconnected, we are overengaged, we are overstimulated and it never stops. Psyche, our whole human evolution was never really meant to be in a connected space 100% of the time.

Speaker 2:

Creativity comes from headspace. New ideas and solutions come from spaciousness in the mind and we just keep compressing it and compressing it, and compressing it. And so a lot of the things, a lot of the technologies that we develop, the well system, for example. Yeah, it seems like it's a massage, but the reality is is that we're able to address multiple senses at one time. So sensory immersion into a space and what that does is it allows you to drop in really quickly, and so the actual impact of the service is not the massage, is not the massage.

Speaker 2:

It's this three to five minutes that it takes you to really drop into a space, almost like yoga, nidra, to say, wow, all right, total relaxation, and 15, 20 minutes of that a few times a week can be a game changer, especially if that you know you're the mom who is at work all day, goes home, kids are screaming till they go to bed at night, or 14 things that they need to do and you never get to turn the noise off unless you're sleeping that it can really change things without anything wildly expensive, without you know 10 hours a week with a personal trainer that no one's got in their schedule, things like that. So there really are very impactful things that can be done without turning your schedule completely upside down.

Speaker 1:

You've talked a bit about the fact that there is a lack of female role models in leadership positions. How has this affected your journey, as you kind of think back, and what steps can we take to increase visibility for women leaders across different industries?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I have lots of thoughts on this topic. The first is, you know, always trying to be what wasn't available for me as much as possible. Open as many doors, kick as many doors open. You know, be the loud voice that's recommending whether someone's in the room or not. I think, as women, we tend to take more of a backseat when it comes to self-promotion. We take a little bit more of a backseat when it comes to self-promotion. We take a little bit more of a backseat when it comes to, you know, arguing for, negotiating for ourselves, but then also the people around us. Sometimes we do better with the people around us than we do even ourselves. So you'll see that, like, I've built up a team around me, but am I really advocating for myself and creating that example?

Speaker 2:

I also think, and I think about my own journey and the years that I questioned like, am I ready to be a mentor? What can I mentor about? Like, am I and you've seen this statistic, I think it came from Sheryl Sandberg or someone originally when women will apply for a job or put themselves forward for something, when they feel like they have 90 to 100% of the skills mastered, men will do this at like 40 to 60%, and I think we apply that in mentorship and we apply that mentality across the board, but we apply it to mentorship and we apply it to sponsorship and things like that. We say, oh, I've even reached out to mentors in the past proactively. Will you please mentor me, women who I thought I would love to be mentored by this person? And the answer I got was I don't feel like I could, I don't feel like I'm in the right position to do that, and I'm just thinking just tell me what you do, just tell me who you are. That's all I need to know.

Speaker 2:

And I think that's a huge piece that women have to get over. Like, if you don't have a mentor, be a mentor, most importantly, and don't wait till you feel like you're one, because there's always someone coming behind you that is looking to master something or at least looking for a sounding board. And the other thing I've learned about mentorship is that it's not about me, it's not about the mentor. It's about me being able to hold up a mirror to the person in front of me and reflect their own potential back at them. That doesn't have anything to do with me. That has to do with me being able to see what's happening in another human and encourage that and bring that forward. So maybe taking this idea like what can I mentor about, but I can be a mirror for just about anyone, literally just about anyone, could be a way to kind of change that mindset a little bit and be like, yeah, maybe it only takes one person to see that potential in another human and give them the confidence to move into something different.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, when you think about mid-career women, what have you seen are the most common? As you think about it, it reminds me of this imposter syndrome, right that we feel like you know, I don't have what it takes. What are the most common manifestations of imposter syndrome that you've seen? And then you know, are there any specific strategies that you've found effective in like women, stepping out of that and stepping into their own empowerment?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I've seen it, I've lived it, I've seen it in so many manifestations. I think the first things that come to mind are over-apologizing. You know, we internalize this language of passivity, of smallness, of you know fast to say I'm sorry for everything, whether it's your fault or not, and it's really a reprogramming, but it's a reprogramming that starts with your internal self-talk. You're not gonna change the external manifestations of what's happening until you start speaking to yourself with love, with acceptance, with worthiness, and that's work. I wish I could give you like a two-minute you know, abridged version of how to get this done, but you've got to be doing the self-work.

Speaker 2:

At the end of the day, you can put on the persona all day, every day. It will exhaust you, though, and it will leave you unfulfilled if it's not aligning with the internal peace. And you know, if you don't actually feel worthy in that room, no matter how you speak out loud, it will not change the outcome for you individually, and so, honestly, it's self-investment. While I've seen certain tactics to feel differently in a meeting or to speak more proactively or in more present language, which I try to do with myself as well the women who I've seen really succeed at leaving imposter syndrome. Behind owning their space, stepping into their power, it's because they're doing the work themselves, which is generational. In my opinion, it's far more important than whatever job you're in at the moment, because that pays dividends back for generations to come.

Speaker 1:

I think if we understood the power from a neuroplasticity perspective right, Will we understand the power that our words have, Because the things we tell ourselves our brain actually starts to believe and program. And so it's this kind of self-deprecating cycle that if we don't change the way we think and the way that we talk to ourselves, none of those external circumstances will ever change. You will stay this kind of shell of trying to display something that maybe doesn't feel authentic because you're still believing those things and you haven't changed that internal narrative to change your external circumstances.

Speaker 2:

That's absolutely right. I just had this conversation yesterday, led a peer group of mine through an exercise to reframe because we should on ourselves. Right, I woke up yesterday morning, should have gotten up earlier. I should have more energy. Right, there's a whole list of shoulds.

Speaker 2:

Difference between your intention and reality. It doesn't know the difference between tenses. So when you're telling the brain all the time I will, I'm going to, I want to, I should, it gives the brain an excuse to just push it into another box. Right, that's a future problem, that's not an in-the-moment problem. And this framing is so important. Like I am speaking, and I am statements out loud to yourself. Speaking in is statements out loud to yourself, because when you speak out loud, your brain doesn't know if it's you or someone else, it just knows to pay attention to the words that are coming out of your mouth.

Speaker 2:

Right, and it really is a trainable situation. Right, we talk, so it's like I liken it to doing exercise, but doing it with bad form. You know you can deadlift a lot of weight with really bad form, but you're not going to do it long or well if you're not paying attention to how the body needs to be set up. Same with the mind right. We kind of overstigmatize this idea of mental health when in reality it's mental fitness and it's making sure that our minds remain fit to do what we need them to do and to thrive. And that includes a lot of internal self-talk, that includes a lot of the narrative and the framing that we use and finding spaciousness and finding ways to decompress.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I really do try to talk a lot about this idea of mental fitness because I think in some ways it disarms or destigmatizes, like, oh, therapy, oh, you have a problem. You talk to a nutritionist, a dietician, a trainer, you might have a whole team of people, and yet we're thinking you know, this innate ability to learn and transform our minds either is within us or not, but we don't believe that about anything else in the world. So, yeah, it's definitely a part of the journey, right? The ability to master thyself is mental, physical and spiritual, right? It's all of those things together.

Speaker 1:

All right, you know the routine. This is where I hit the pause button. I hope you enjoyed this episode with my guest, bryn Scarborough, as she shares her journey as a tech-forward wellness innovator and passionate advocate for women in leadership. Make sure to come back next week for part two. Thank you so much for listening and for being here on this journey with me. I hope you'll stick around If you liked this episode.

Speaker 1:

It would mean the world for me if you would rate and review the podcast or share it with someone you know may need to hear this message. I love to hear from you all and want you to know that you can leave me a voicemail directly. If you go to my website, evokegreatnesscom, and go to the contact me tab, you'll just hit the big old orange button and record your message. I love the feedback and comments that I've been getting, so please keep them coming. I'll leave you with the wise words of author Robin Sharma Greatness comes by doing a few small and smart things each and every day. It comes from taking little steps consistently. It comes from making a few small chips against everything in your professional and personal life that is ordinary, so that a day eventually arrives when all that's left is the extraordinary you.

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