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00:00:06 Sana: Here's a question for you listeners, especially, you know, if you recall your workplace conversations, how many times have you, um, thought or talked about, you may have talked about what you have eaten or what you ate, maybe in your lunch or what are you going to have in your dinner? Probably. But then, we just talked about, yeah, this is the cuisine or this is the food I'm going to, I recently saw it on Instagram, so I'm going to make it or maybe I watched it on YouTube shorts. So that's what I'm going to make it. But how many times you have talked about eating or food during a working day, not as a diet, as a discipline, but as something that shapes your focus, your mood, your ability to stay under pressure. Not many times, you know, maybe seldom, but listeners, for today's episode on The Mindful Living, we explored that connection with someone who trained as a professional chef before he ever stood in front of a boardroom. And a quick hint, you may have heard him on one of our other podcast, Healthy Mind Healthy Life. You can check out the episode over there. Um, it's available on Spotify, Apple, YouTube, wherever you can or you are tuning to your podcast.

00:01:30 Sana: But yes, this time we are here on the Mindful Living show. I am Sana and yes listeners, I'm joined by someone who is an author, speaker, educator. He teaches at London Business School, Imperial College, and the University of Cambridge Smaller Institute, among others. He cooked in an Italian trattoria before building a career in leadership and organizational change. He's also the author of Next Generation Leadership Sparking Success, and his newest book, Executive Eats. So, Adam, welcome to the Mindful Living. And as always, it's a joy having you here.

00:02:12 Adam Kingl: Oh thank you. Great to be back. Great to be speaking with you again.

00:02:15 Sana: Absolutely, absolutely. Adam, I've had a I had a blast last time. I remember, when we started, I actually had, very less expectation in terms of getting, suggestions. You know, what, um, what, what we can have, what kind of diet, changes we can have or maybe what kind of combinations we can have, you know, we talked about, how the colors and maybe, you know, the nutritional value, um, we can all combine together how it involves the senses. But anyway, I'll put the link of that episode in the show notes so that listeners can listen to that one. But for here, uh, before we get into the book, um, let's start with your story. Uh, because you, you cooked professionally before moving into leadership and business education. So tell us how it all panned out.

00:03:04 Adam Kingl: I did well, cooking has always been a passion of mine. Uh, as an amateur, when I was going to graduate school at UCLA, it sort of occurred to me, I need to pay for this thing somehow. So I thought, what can I sort of do around my classes? Uh, and I thought, well, cooking, I mean, I love. Cooking, uh, etc. so, but, but first I needed to make sure that I at least kind of knew what I was doing. So I spent the summer taking a class classes at Le Cordon Bleu in, uh, in Pasadena, California. Uh, and then, um, and then that sort of gave me, uh, it wasn't the full professional accreditation, but it gave me all the basics. Then I luckily got a job at, as you say, at a trattoria in Brentwood in California, where I work most weekends all through my my graduate school studies of three years. And so I would just kind of kept that on the back burner of my head of like thinking about cooking and how it plays in my life and how it either helps or hinders my performance. Even when I moved into academia and keynote speaking and consulting. And, um, when I finally, uh, decided to incorporate cooking into my writing, it was on my second book, Sparking Success, which is about how to enhance creativity. But I thought cooking is actually a great discipline to think about. So what do great chefs do in inventing, you know, menus, new dishes, etc.? So I use that. I did a chapter on that. And now Executive Eats is really about the confluence of nutrition, wellness and performance for busy professionals now. I mean, it makes it sound as if it's only for working life. Truth be told, of course, Executive Eats is a catchy title. But really, I hope that people, anyone would find this relevant, whether they are in professional role, whether they're homemaker. Anyone who wants to feel better, live a more mindful life. As you said, think about their diet as more of a discipline and a joy, I would say, and maybe embrace even the act of cooking itself.

00:05:18 Speaker 1: Now that's what I really love that. Um, I kind of.

00:05:24 Sana: Discovered I shouldn't say that, my skills in cooking, but more like, love of cooking fresh, you know, meal, uh, and just, enjoying because I, I'm not a fast eater. I take, uh, minimum thirty minutes, minimum thirty minutes. I can go for an hour or so. And sometimes I really get literally like bullied by my friends, because, they always keep on taunting me that you are such a slow eater, but I love to enjoy every, you know, bit of food. and, um, not only the kind of, you know, spiritual because in India, I mean, at least, in our culture, we have a, we have this practice of, you know, in, in, uh, Western countries, you have to pray before, you eat your food. So in India also, at least, my parents generation, they, they always used to tell us that, always pray before you and this keep one morsel of food separately for the gods. so there's a, I don't know, uh, the entire background behind that practice, that ritual, but there's a spiritual connection. But more than that, uh, I, I believe that, you, you should actually be at least, have that sense, what you are eating, how you are eating. Otherwise, you are just, it's kind of you're disrespecting your, body and the food also.

00:06:46 Adam Kingl: Mhm. Yes. I mean, e you know, certainly we can eat more mindfully. Uh, eating more slowly helps us to appreciate it. So it's not just food as fuel, uh, but food as enjoyment, but also you're starting to think about what you're consuming. So I hope that in being more mindful about the act of eating, we also will, over time will be more choiceful about what we are choosing to eat because we're actually noticing what it is. Is it fresh? You know, is it good for me? How does it make me feel during and after, um, consuming it? Uh, and so, and of course, we also have to think about the act of cooking itself, you know, for I, I would hope that people who are listening, who listen to my work or who read my book, think about I should be cooking more often as I hope a conclusion that they will come to, because cooking is also an act of mindfulness. You know, cooking is any anything which allows you to turn your mind off or to to release the stresses and anxieties of the day and to start to say, look, now, now is the time where I can I can do repetitive activity. I can master a skill. Um, you know, I can be in flow, uh, which also enhances, you know, our creativity, our inspiration. But we also know from the University College London Department of Psychobiology that people who cook regularly might have benefits such as lower blood pressure, improved motor function skills, better memory, reduced incidences of anxiety and depression. And it may perhaps this is true for people practicing other mindful activities as well. But for people who are struggling to find time, practice mindful activities, well, we all have to cook at some point, right? Unless unless you only order takeaways or go to restaurants and that's your entire diet, you cook at some point in your life. So why not be mindful about that rather than just trying to get through it as quickly as possible, or just buy a pre-made microwave meal and throw it. Throw it in the microwave. Um, so, so actually, while the book executive eats is filled with what we could be eating, what my I and my co-author discovered is we also should be thinking about just cooking more often.

00:08:59 Sana: Yes, yes, I, you know, like I, I'll be the, the biggest advocate for that. and, and also, you know, I, I would like to bring in the leadership aspect here because, this is the heart of executive eats, as you mentioned in the beginning as well. why, why do you think that, nutrition or, uh, this is such an overlooked performance tool for people who are in demanding high pressure roles. And it's not just about the, the, workplace, context or your professional, lives, but also in personal lives also, because right now we are in uncertainty. The situations that we are dealing with. They are testing our patience. They're testing our emotions. They are making us more impatient, more emotionally triggering, more reactive. So why do you think that nutrition is right now, you know, overlooked?

00:09:56 Adam Kingl: Well, it's easy to ignore. It's easy to it's easy to shortcut around it. It's easy to say it's not a priority. Um, however, you know, we, we expect or we suspect that the performance of our organism, our body, right, our ability to concentrate, our ability to have sustained energy, uh, our ability to stave off, you know, anxiety or mood fluctuations, all of these things might be correlated to our performance at work by up to thirty to forty percent. And, and of course, intuitively it makes sense. How could you possibly look after your business or your team. Or achieve your KPIs. If you aren't looking after yourself, the body is the vehicle that delivers performance. You know, you you can't drive your car one hundred, zero zero zero miles and never take it into the garage for a tune up. Right? So we looked after the car so that it can perform so that it can drive where we need it to go. Same thing with our body. We need to look after it. And those tune up for us should be thinking about what are we eating on a daily basis. That's our fuel. That's the petrol of our particular vehicle. And so are we putting are we, are we putting in crap or are we putting in premium petrol.

00:11:20 Sana: That's so true. That's so true. And and I think this is not a rocket science at all. Not a rocket science at all. And we, we all have, either we ourselves are like the cautionary tales or potentially we can become the cautionary tales or because, every guests, especially whom I've hosted, uh, you know, they have always, you know, especially when, when there is any discussion around burnout or, for a specific time of their life, they have completely like, you know, they have sacrificed sleep. They have, they have sacrificed their, you know, they didn't even think about it because, you know, it could be because of the conditioning or, uh, this, uh, presumed thought that, you know, you have to trade off yourself to achieve that success, you know, um, so especially in the high pressure situation, um, I think food and sleep are the immediate ones that we sacrifice. I mean, I have suffered because of lack of sleep and of course no food. then, you know, we have these afternoon crash outs and we try to compensate either by having coffee or, you know, by smoking or, um, and then, you know, you have also on the, on the flip side, uh, there is this overweight, you know, very overrated dose of, you know, how you can make your food more high protein, high protein, like everything has now become just high protein. Like what about the micronutrients as well, you know, like fishes and then seeds or maybe it's, it would be just like, you know, more. Um, yeah, it's mostly high protein item. Like I, I feel there's a lot of dose of, you know, that high protein food or vegan or that's.

00:13:04 Adam Kingl: Quite the trend right now. Yes. Yeah. And look, you listed some things that I think are equally important. I'm happening to focus on nutrition, but I'm not saying that to minimize that. When I say we need to look after our vehicle, I also mean, of course, as you say, hydration, sleep, exercise, the quality of our home life, the quality of our work life, all of these things matter. But but, you know, I keep focusing on one thing at a time. I'm focusing on nutrition just because that's my experience and expertise. Yes, but but we shouldn't overlook the other things as well. All of those things are important.

00:13:40 Sana: Absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely.

00:13:44 Adam Kingl: I mean, you mentioned protein. I mean that is quite the trend right now. Everyone's saying, you know, pack in the protein. There is some validity to the point of we should be eating protein, right? It is an important part of our diet. It's important for sustained energy, but not at the expense of other things. Like if you're if all you're eating is protein, no other vitamins or nutrients that that's a problem. So I really am suspicious of diets which say, which basically are saying just eat one thing or one kind of food. We all, we know that isn't good for you. The cliche eat the rainbow is medically proven right. Eat a variety of of nutrients and ingredients.

00:14:26 Sana: Absolutely. No, no. Yeah, you're right, you're right. Um, and I also, uh, I'm curious to, to understand, uh, because I want to make this, uh, practical, like for someone who is, is genuinely busy. Um, last time on healthy mind healthy life, you know, because, um, I could give a reference from the kind of lifestyle I'm seeing, especially in a city like Bangalore. And I imagine in major, you know, all the super fast, you know, cities out there, London, New York, and, you know, this and that. Uh, there's this, you know, over speed, um, or like sped up lifestyle, you know, where you do not have even time, uh, to, I don't know, to do the basic, um, just, you know, activities. So either you go for a takeaway or you here in Bangalore, we have also like, you know, you can hire a cook as well. Um, so you are spending on getting the groceries, but then you're also having a cook who cooks the food for you. I mean, you don't have time for any of that. So you're just, you know, spending money. Uh, but then, yeah, I'm getting groceries. So it is home cooked meal. Um, so maybe, they do not want to become a chef. Uh, but or maybe, they have this misconception that, okay, maybe I have to first know how to cook, then only, you know, I can use this. I can take this approach. What do you think is one simple, realistic shift they could make? Uh, probably this week or maybe in the near future that would actually support their focus and mood at work overall holistically.

00:16:14 Adam Kingl: Also for mood specifically. Well, um, I mean, there are a couple of ingredients that I would suggest people eat more of in their diet, uh, that support mood and, and, and decrease stress. one is, um, uh, tryptophan. Now, tryptophan is a naturally occurring ingredient that appears in poultry in things like broccoli. Tofu, um, but very common in poultry, like chicken, turkey, etc.. Um, tryptophan is releases the, uh, helps catalyze the feel good hormone in our body serotonin. Now, sometimes it gets a bad reputation because people think that, oh, if you, if you consume a lot of tryptophan, it makes you sleepy. That isn't true. When people say, oh, I had like a big chicken dinner. And so I was really tired because of the tryptophan. It wasn't the tryptophan. It's because you just consumed, you know, three pounds of chicken and that's why you're tired. So all the blood and energy is going, you know, to digestion rather than and it's leaving your head. Um, so definitely, I think, you know, consume more tryptophan. Again, chicken, tofu, broccoli, etc.. The other thing is, of course, mood is supported by things like, um, uh, oily fish. You know, things like that. So you eat more salmon, sardines, mackerel, uh, you know, trout, tuna, etc.. These kinds of foods, uh, also help, um, our, our brain to sort of process and regulate, um, our emotional life. Another thing just from the vegetarian world, black beans are a lovely, uh, source of micronutrients that help us to reduce, uh, anxiety. A lot of people, when they feel anxious or they want to calm down. Also, they drink chamomile tea and sometimes they just think, well, it's the aroma. Well, yes, that's true. The aroma could be coming. But actually there are micronutrients in the chamomile itself, which biologically also help calm us down. So there's a reason beyond the scent of, of chamomile. Um, and the final two things I would mention again in the micro, micro areas are our, uh, saffron. Saffron has actually has been shown as an as an ingredient that can help with mood and stress. Uh, and turmeric. Turmeric, of course, is a natural antioxidant. Um, and, and we all, we often think about antioxidants and anti-inflammatories just in relation to our muscles and our joints. But actually more recent research indicates that antioxidants, anti-inflammatories are also good for the brain to help to help it deal with stress. Because when we get really stressed, our brain actually can swell. So acts. So for the same reason, you want to reduce swelling in a muscle. And so you take an, uh, an anti-inflammatory. The same would be true then for, for the brain. So, um, so consuming those kinds of ingredients in extremely stressful days or weeks can help us to process what we're going through.

00:19:20 Sana: now, turmeric and saffron, especially, uh, these are very frequently used in Indian cuisine. Turmeric is almost every day used in Indian cuisines, and saffron are either down south or down north of India. Uh, so these are very, very popular spices, flowers, which are used in occasions and in daily food also.

00:19:45 Adam Kingl: Yes. Yeah. Indeed indeed. So yeah, I absolutely would advocate, uh, yeah, keep, keep consuming it and, and maybe reach to those ingredients in particular, if you're experiencing stress or anxiety or feel that it's going to be a stressful day.

00:20:00 Sana: I really love that. That's why, you know, I always look forward to have these discussions with you because it feels like, you know, uh, this is my zone. But yeah, I, I really love that. Adam, last time, you know, you talked about, you know, ginger and then, you know, the popping colors this time fishes turmeric. I, I love that we talked about anti inflammatory also. Um, okay. Um Adam any any specific message that you would like to leave for a mindful Living listeners? Because you mentioned about your co-author, he's a professionally trained chef, uh, side effect background. So it's like, it's not just only about a typical cookbook, but there is science, there is nutrition.

00:20:41 Speaker 4: There is. Yeah.

00:20:42 Sana: How we can apply this in the daily life. So any message that you would like to.

00:20:46 Adam Kingl: Yeah, it's filled with the science. So people want to understand the science of better nutrition as well. What foods can we be eating to improve different physical state? Please pick up the book because it's filled with tip tables of ingredients and nutrients. My co-author, Jakub Radzikowski, has a PhD in molecular biology, uh, and teaches in the chemistry department at Imperial College London. So it is scientifically rigorous. Um, and so I as well as then some recipes that we give so that if people are looking at ingredient going, yeah, but I don't know what to do with that ingredient. We help you out. And that's what the cookbook element is, is for, but it's, you're right. It's more than just a cookbook. The chapter introductions I hope readers will find is filled with useful information.

00:21:31 Sana: No, I think of course it is. After all, if we look at food also, it is about chemistry. It's about physics.

00:21:39 Speaker 4: That's right.

00:21:39 Sana: So it is about science. So, one thing which I'll definitely, uh, share with all of our listeners that that's why it's not a typical wellness cookbook because most of the food and performance books, they lean either entirely into science and then, forget that a recipe, it has to taste good as well. You know, that a tired, busy person they'll actually enjoy actually want to make it again tomorrow. So I think, uh, it's genuinely useful wrapped inside food that people will actually enjoy eating. So Adam, for our listeners, how they can get access to your book and to you as well.

00:22:16 Adam Kingl: It should, the book should be available. Hopefully any online retailer, book retailer will be will be selling it. It's available in hardback, paperback and ebook. So it's called Executive Eats the Cookbook for a Better Working Life. If they want to reach me or read more about my media or find out about my keynote speaking. Just go to my website, Adam dot com. That's A d a m K I n g l. Also happy for people to reach out to me on LinkedIn, just search for my name, which I've already spelled so easy, easy for listeners to, uh, to find me in a number of ways.

00:22:49 Sana: Amazing. So listeners, all the links will be dropped there in the show notes. I invite all of you to check out Executive Eats the Cookbook for a better working Life. I'll have all the links there in the show notes. You can connect with Adam on LinkedIn, and you can also check out his speaking engagements. And of course, you know, just find all the details in there. But thank you for tuning in to the mindful Living. I am Sana and do follow the podcast on Spotify, Apple, wherever you're tuning in, but I'm Sana and I'll be back soon with another episode. Thank you so much.