The Legal Zone (S3:E1): What Focusing on Wellness Can Do for Your Business, Employees & Your Soul?

Transcript

Host: Regina M. Campbell, Esq., The Campbell Law Group (TCLG)

Guest: Samantha Reynolds, lifestyle architect, yoga teacher and founder of Café Namaste

Introduction

Regina Campbell: Hi, everyone. I'm Regina Campbell, your host here at The Legal Zone, brought to you by The Campbell Law Group. We want to welcome everyone back for Season 3, Episode 1 of The Legal Zone. Today we have a wonderful topic and speaker, and hopefully a rather uplifting topic to start your week off with. Our topic is going to be what focusing on wellness can do for your business, your employees and your soul.

Before we get to our wonderful guest, who, as you can see, is waiting, this is Samantha Reynolds, we're going to talk a little bit about the prior podcast to remind everyone what came before, in case you missed it. We had Ms. Elise Houlik on, Chief Privacy Officer from Intuit, where she gave us quite a few tips on U.S. data privacy laws and some of the differences with European law. She tried to help us tame the chaos surrounding that area of law.

Most importantly, she impressed upon us that it is now extremely necessary, so to speak, to reach out to privacy officers and attorneys within your office and not to be afraid of them. They will not bite, and they can actually be your best friend in the kind of legal and business environment we live in nowadays. Once again, we want to thank Ms. Houlik for coming on.

But today we have an amazing speaker, and we're going to change gears for a moment and talk about your wellness. We have the best speaker to do that. Samantha Reynolds is a lifestyle architect, an international yoga teacher and a creative entrepreneur based out of Miami, Florida. She is passionate about uplifting others through a holistic approach to well-being. Sam believes in the transformative power of yoga and a healthy lifestyle to thrive in your everyday life.

Her mission is also to help others find a healthy balance, and she believes everyone has the potential to thrive. Sam advocates a healthy lifestyle. She offers public and private classes, in addition to designing lifestyle programs for residential buildings, developers and companies. She also creates events and experiences to facilitate peace, community and joy.

She has over seven years of experience in the wellness industry, and some of her clients include PMG, Capital One, Hyatt Hotels, Greystar, Biscayne Beach, Gables Engineering and Body Glove. So it's a rather impressive list of clients that she's been able to help. But I want to start the conversation by talking to Ms. Reynolds about her amazing, transformative trip abroad, where it changed her life and many other people's lives. She traveled to the Czech Republic and Rwanda, and she helped others. If we can start there, that'd be great, Ms. Reynolds.

From the Czech Republic to Rwanda

Samantha Reynolds: Thank you so much for having me on the podcast. I'm so happy to share my journey with you. It goes back quite some time, to about 2007-2008, when I was studying international administration at the University of Miami, with the hopes of becoming an international human rights lawyer. That's when I moved to the Czech Republic to study law at Charles University, at the Faculty of Law, for a semester abroad program. Those three months ended up turning into five years living overseas in the Czech Republic.

Not in law, but rather developing and designing educational programs for the University of Miami on Holocaust and genocide education. I took a more hands-on approach and was in the field for five years, educating and guiding university students to concentration camps and various sites around Central Europe. My background was always an interest in post-conflict and ethnic conflict and, dare I say, genocide studies. How does humanity get to that level of destruction, and what facilitates, what creates something like that? So for those years I was really studying and analyzing the nature of violence and the nature of war, and showing people life beyond that.

With that background, five years in Holocaust studies and Holocaust education, I was always curious about and fascinated by Rwanda, the most recent genocide in our lifetime, and how a nation can move beyond such suffering. I had the opportunity one summer to go there, of my own accord, for a human rights program, and I spent four weeks on my own in Rwanda in 2012. I fell in love with the country. I fell in love with the people. It's beautiful, and the power that they had to transform their country, their nation, after such profound atrocity was beyond me. I couldn't believe how much they had overcome and how you can still live peacefully despite all of the past suffering.

So after five years of living in the Czech Republic working in Holocaust studies, I was pretty much done. My soul had taken in too much of that realm, I would say, in the Czech Republic. I decided to embark on another journey, and I moved to Rwanda to work for a nonprofit based out of New York City called Agahozo-Shalom. It was a youth village for orphaned teens, post-genocide, moving them out of the space of poverty and hopelessness into a space of hope and the potential to thrive.

I spent a year living on site in rural East Africa, an hour outside of Kigali, not only being a mentor to 16 girls but also being an advocacy and partnership assistant to the executive team. So basically I was the correspondent between the New York board and the Rwandan staff. I was the middle woman.

Coming home and discovering yoga

Samantha Reynolds: And mind you, at this time I wasn't into wellness. I had never even studied yoga before. I had never even practiced. I was too busy traveling the world and doing all of these things. In my 20s, the thought of going to a yoga class just wasn't in my vocabulary. It wasn't in my mindset. I don't even think I looked at a food label in that time either. It was a very different mindset and a very different focus in my life.

And everything changed when I moved back to the United States six years later. I had this experience living not only in Europe but in East Africa, and I came back not really knowing what it all meant anymore. I had such profound experiences that I didn't quite feel like I was European, and I wasn't African, and I didn't know where I belonged or fit in. I had so much experience and no one to share it with. I didn't know how to communicate anymore. I was plopped in the middle of Fort Myers, Florida.

It was that time in my life when I needed to pause. I needed to take a break, and I needed to integrate everything that I had experienced overseas, through witnessing true suffering and hardship. My mother actually introduced me to yoga. She gave me a copy of the Bhagavad Gita, which is one of the texts of yoga, and she took me to my first class. I was hesitant. I wasn't sure what I was doing.

But when I went to my first yoga class, I thought, wow, I feel connected again. I feel at peace with myself and my body, and I'm starting to create awareness of all my experiences and integrate them, just making peace with them. I thought I was going to go back to higher education administration, or move to New York City or DC and work my way up in an international NGO. And every door closed. It was like, "No, Sam, you need to stay there."

So one thing led to another. I thought, well, fine, I'm going to stay in Fort Myers and I'm going to study yoga. I'm going to learn about healthy eating. It was the first time I read a food label, and the first time I switched to being plant-based as well. And there started my wellness journey, in 2014, 2015, taking a real radical 180 approach.

I mean, if you had told me in 2013 or 2014 that I would be teaching yoga on top of rooftops and designing wellness programs for PMG, I would have laughed at you. This wasn't in my lifelong plan, to teach yoga and totally shift my life this way. And so here I am today with all of that experience I gained not only in the Czech Republic but in Rwanda as well: how to move beyond suffering, how to thrive within our daily landscape with all of the stress that is involved with life, just the nature of being a human and everything that entails. And now I've realized there are a few key ingredients to health and well-being that are essential to what I do.

Healing and peace after trauma

Regina Campbell: It's interesting, because in Rwanda it's very much still alive. You still have people who have suffered, like you indicated, orphans, and it's recent. It's not like it was 100 or 200 years ago. Not many people have probably had that experience of watching the aftermath. I assume the Hutus and the Tutsis are somehow able to coexist, and so there's healing despite the fact that there is so much vivid and recent trauma.

And I think it's amazing, because when you're talking, it's reminding me that humans have the ability to find that peace if they want to. Unfortunately, sometimes it comes after atrocities and things of that nature. And I understand why you would want to study how we get there. How does a culture get there? How does that happen? So it's the pre and the post of it, but it seems to have transformed your life to understand that no matter what is happening...

For one, it sounds like you probably have a lot of gratitude for life. We complain about odds and ends: this traffic and that person, "They bothered me, they cut me off." When people are able to put aside those things, you probably bring out the most human element of people, and it gets down to its core. And it sounds like you've been trying to show that it can be healed that way. Healing starts by taking care of yourself, and probably letting go, is my guess. That's why some of your literature talks about peace and community, because if you can't let go, you can't heal either.

And then, like you said, bringing hope. I can't imagine what that must have been like in those villages, seeing the repercussions of a genocide and people still being able to coexist and live and try to move ahead. It's absolutely amazing. So I can only imagine, like you said: who am I? I don't quite fit in Africa, I don't quite fit here, I don't quite fit in Europe. Because how many people would have had the experience that you've had?

That's probably why you can bring an element to wellness and soulfulness that most people can't. It sounds like you were meant to do that. You were the right person, with the right idea and purpose and the ability to absorb that. So I commend you. It's absolutely amazing.

Samantha Reynolds: Yes, absolutely.

Where to start with wellness

Regina Campbell: And hopefully everyone listening hears this, because after the pandemic, and just in general, it's a very contentious world. It's gotten to the point, even in the United States, that families can't talk about politics, because one feels one way passionately and the other feels another, and they would just rather not talk about it. So we're in a world that has been hyper-partisan. It's just like, yikes, it's very tense, and I'm sure it's the same way in people's jobs and everywhere else.

So how do you find that peace? And of course, work is stressful. Work is stressful enough, even if you enjoy it, and life can be stressful with all the changes and things that happen. So what are your teachings about how people can change? Where do you start with wellness, especially if you were like you, where you didn't know anything about yoga, nothing about food? How do you start?

Samantha Reynolds: Absolutely. I think the curiosity is there. And I know that most people, dare I say all people, want peace in some way: the ability to sleep well at night, go to bed with a clear conscience and wake up with a smile the next day. And what I've found is that your health is so important and linked to everything else in your life.

What I found was the easiest thing for me when I moved back to the United States was starting somewhere, committing to something small. If it's 10 minutes going for a walk outside, or 20 minutes, commit to it. Commit to something that you can build upon, but also something that's accessible for you. I see some people when they come to class, and it doesn't matter whether they're flexible or not. I always tell my students, we have a whole lifetime to work on this, but you have to start somewhere.

So just show up. The first step is the willingness and desire, so just show up, and we can do this our entire lifetime together. I always invite everyone to commit to something and have the commitment and the integrity to follow through. And I would say, first, it has to be something you enjoy. What are you curious about? Is it walking outside? Is it going bike riding? Is it running? Is it yoga? Go from there, following your passion and following what makes you smile. That would be the first start.

Service and volunteering

Samantha Reynolds: The second, which I think is what I am hopefully creating, is the ability to volunteer easily. I think that is probably the overarching theme, more so than even attending a yoga class, for soulful well-being, spiritual well-being and the well-being of the entire community: making time to serve and getting out of your own head and your own stresses. And you can do that. There are a number of chances, a number of opportunities, in your own backyard to be of service.

That's why I try to make it as accessible as possible, offering these volunteer meetups almost as a class that we go to together once a month, or even to build a vegetable garden and help in the neighborhood. That requires very minimal effort. You don't need to be a bodybuilder to sign up for serving meals for two hours of your life. So I try to offer these things in a way that's accessible, making it fun and making it so that you feel like you belong and you're working toward something.

Regina Campbell: It's ironic you say that, because sometimes, like you're saying, people come to your yoga class and they're not very flexible. There might actually be a stigma, or they feel embarrassed to come back, or they just can't do it, so they won't even try anymore. But that's the whole point: to break down those barriers so they can start with you and feel comfortable. You don't have to be a bodybuilder.

I can't tell you how many times I go to the gym and I see someone kind of timid in the corner, just trying to lift weights, and I'm like, we all start somewhere. You should not be put off because you feel like you're just a beginner. Everyone starts somewhere. And it's about getting out of your comfort zone. I think it's a good point, because it might get you to volunteer, and it'll get you to take care of yourself.

But I think there's sometimes that fear: "No, no, I can't do that." Even when you're in pain: "I can't do yoga, my neck hurts, my back hurts." Actually, it's the perfect time to do it. So I think that's really important.

Wellness programs for businesses

Regina Campbell: So how do you bring this to businesses? How can a business owner help their employees? When you say you create wellness programs for companies, does that incorporate some of what we're talking about, or help them bring it into the workplace, or give employees time to get into these different programs or ways of thinking?

Samantha Reynolds: It does. I have a number of strategies, let's call them. I have corporate clients who purely need weekly wellness classes, and I will help them design a program based on their needs and what they're missing. In that respect, perhaps the service or the other events that I offer don't come into play, although I do bring them to their attention.

The other factor that I offer, and this is primarily for developers and residential properties, and it's been quite successful, is a package for the residents. With the residential programming, all of the events and wellness classes are designed around wellness, connection, growth, service and joy. So there's the element of fun. And offering this brings value. In all of these spaces, all of these buildings, there's a desire to belong. There's a desire to connect. It's a common human value that we all hold.

So with my volunteer programs, everywhere I go, no matter what I offer or whatever company I work with, it's all united under service. I offer this to everybody, and that's where I find the ripple effect. I'll have, let's say, a property manager attend one of my volunteer programs, and then he or she wants to implement it in their own company. Or I have a large developer that sees the value in it and then implements it within their own team.

So I am the gateway, I would say, for other people to experience and try this, and then bring it to their own community, their own space, their own corporation, through volunteering. And then with the wellness, the programming is based on their needs, and it can be anything from a Bollywood dance class to something very soulful and meditative.

Regina Campbell: Okay, and I think that makes sense, speaking as a business owner and on behalf of a lot of business owners that I represent. I think it would also add value. It adds some community within the workspace, among employees. You're not just in your cubicle working, not looking around, with everything completely stressful and always difficult.

Hopefully it also creates a sense of community with each other, so it's not just so tedious and arduous. It's like, okay, we can have fun together, we can open up in different ways. I assume it would also help employees feel better about themselves and about being in their environment, in their company, so to speak. Would you agree?

Samantha Reynolds: I would absolutely agree. It is something that I've seen. My volunteer events sell out, let's say, and I see that there's a need. I can't tell you how many times people had no idea that this was available. I see a lot of new people and new businesses coming to Miami, and they want to get involved and they don't know how.

And I've seen that camaraderie. I've seen how it changes people, and I've noticed it from my experience in Rwanda: again, the polarity, moving beyond something that's divisive. There are common elements in any culture you go to, of kindness and charity and just being a decent human being. Those, I find, have really transcended all cultures.

Regina Campbell: And I agree.

Samantha Reynolds: At the end of the day, businesses are people. And you have to put your people first.

Regina Campbell: I agree. I think that also comes around. In the last decade or so, companies seem to be becoming more socially responsible, and hopefully they actually are. They're not just touting, "Okay, I have the cheapest product," or, "I have the best product." Some of them are going out of their way now to show friendliness to the environment, but also some social responsibility, giving back, whether it's to a charity or other organizations, or just helping out in another way. That seems to be where they're making a high profile.

Now, I know they're also doing it because it sheds good light on their name, but hopefully they're also doing it out of goodwill. And they're recognizing that same need that you're talking about. Everyone wants to invest in a product that also acts the way they want to, with goodwill, trying to help other people. Even if they can't solve someone's problem themselves, if this company can help that organization, or other people, or other companies, or charities and organizations that might need help, you're more likely, because most humans do want to feel that way, to buy their product, associate yourself with them or encourage the use of their product.

Whether it's practical business sense or they just realize it's also helpful for the world, we're all united, we're all connected, no matter what happens. So I think there's more of that. That's why I think it was so important to have you on to talk about these things, to talk about your journey and what you've learned from it, and how it transformed into an everyday health concern and way of thinking about how to take care of yourself too.

By taking care of yourself and connecting with other people, you're ultimately transcending all of these lines and all of this divisiveness, regardless of what country you're in. You're teaching people how to heal, because we desperately need that. There's so much acrimony going on. And a lot of it happens in businesses too: a lot of tension and political games, not to mention the stress of everything, the stress of life. It's very difficult.

Empowering women and girls, and social media

Regina Campbell: So we've talked a bit about things employers can do for employees. I also want to talk to you about your journey. How has the empowerment of girls and women changed over time, and what else do we need to do to help women and girls feel empowered? I realize it's one of your areas of focus. I think you also focused on that in Rwanda as well, right?

Samantha Reynolds: Yes.

Regina Campbell: And of course it might change from country to country, because there are different political circumstances and rights and so forth. But I do believe girls can be empowered wherever they are. It's also how you feel about your value. So how has it changed over time, and what else can we do at this point to empower women and girls?

Samantha Reynolds: Thinking about my time in Rwanda, I might even say that it's the same everywhere: the ability to empower another person to feel like they can do anything and that anything is possible. But not only that: to have the support network that you need when something doesn't go to plan. What I see now, because I'm particularly in downtown Miami, where many of my clients are, is a younger group, people starting their careers who are not sure where to go or what to do. And what I've noticed is a need for more support on the back end, whether it's micro groups or checking in.

I just had a conversation with a colleague of mine about this yesterday, actually: what to do to really raise up the women of Miami, to elevate the young girls of our community. I haven't devised a whole program for that yet. But I see more mentorship, more micro communities forming within fields, per se. So it's the budding of Miami: a group of young women having someone older, more mature and experienced, who has gone through it.

And even in Rwanda, we had a system with the group of 16 girls. I was known as "cousin." So I was a family member, but a family member you might not see all the time. They understood that Sam was going to leave one day. But there was a big sister, and there was also a mama, so it was really recreating the family structure. And because we live in a cosmopolitan city, a lot of people are away from their families and might not have support. I think family and a strong group of friends is really important, and someone who can guide you along the path, not just in business but in all areas of life.

Regina Campbell: Yes, it's tough. I have two children, and I've been an entrepreneur and a career person most of my life. My children are older, but it is hard. It's hard to navigate, and it's a new world that's constantly changing really, really rapidly from the previous generation to now. And honestly, even the generations that came after me seem to evolve even faster. So you don't know what the expectations are, right? "Well, I'm supposed to be a mom, but also a career person, and I can't show weakness, and I can't have this problem, and I can't have that problem."

We need to look at the world differently, you know what I mean? And I think it's hard for women, because they think, okay, if I say something, I'm weak, and this and that, so it becomes an issue. How do you deal with that? How do you not get locked into that sense that I am different because I am a woman, in a negative way, not a positive way? Because it's always good to be whatever you are, whether it's a man or a woman or whatever you are. But at the end of the day, there are different challenges for women and men, particularly when you give birth to children, and there are stigmas about pregnancy and career and stuff like that.

So I think it's really important for girls to have mentors, men and women, because it's just scary. You don't know who to talk to. It's a different age. There's TikTok and all the external environmental factors that come into play in influencing the shape of a human being.

Samantha Reynolds: It's very powerful. Media and Instagram and TikTok: there's a reason why they still exist, and there's a reason why Instagram marketing works. But there comes a responsibility for us to say, "Hey, wait a second. Don't be listening to that."

Regina Campbell: No, it's true. They think they have to be like what's on Instagram, or like this woman who looks like she's got it all handled. She's got two kids, she looks stunning day and night, and she's in this place and that place. It sets up an unrealistic expectation. And it does that with men too, anyone watching. It sets up a facade, so to speak, because it's really not the way life is.

It's tough. You leave work, you're tired, your feet hurt, your kids are crying and complaining. It doesn't matter what age, whether they're small and hungry or they're teenagers and just moody. That's reality. It doesn't mean that you shouldn't go out and have a good time, and sometimes go on vacation, and look pretty, everybody, so to speak, or be relaxed. But you're absolutely right. It sets up expectations for the impossible, often.

Samantha Reynolds: And then I would just go back to service. I was fortunate as a youth to be exposed to different aspects of life. Of course, I was a bit more adventurous than my Ohio parents, but not many people move to Rwanda, or even South Africa.

Regina Campbell: Very brave. Very brave, too, because it's something that's unknown. It's not like you had family there, or somebody who might have helped you lead the way. You kind of plowed that way, and it's been beneficial for everybody.

Final advice and closing

Regina Campbell: So are there any other tips you'd like to give our viewers? Anything you can think of that we haven't talked about?

Samantha Reynolds: To leave everybody today, I would say that if you're not focused on your health and well-being, start today. Do something immediately. And this might sound crazy, but it's probably the best piece of advice I could give: get enough sleep.

Regina Campbell: Yes, yes. I'm learning now, the hard way, that sleep is needed.

Samantha Reynolds: Needed. So take care of yourself. Eat well. And get out there and go make a difference. Go live your life. You never know when the last day will be. So be the best that you can, with a smile on your face, and all will be well.

Regina Campbell: I like that. I think it's perfect. Thank you. Something to always live by every day, if we can. That's important, like you're saying. Thank you for leaving us with that on a Monday too.

Samantha Reynolds: My pleasure.

Regina Campbell: So we want to thank you for coming on. It's been such a blessing, such a wonderful change of pace, and an opportunity for people to remind themselves to take care of themselves, and to show the value that businesses can have in promoting these kinds of ideas and benefits for their employees as well. So I want to thank you.

Samantha Reynolds: Thank you.

Regina Campbell: So to all our viewers out there, thank you for tuning in. Hopefully this has been enjoyable. I'm sure it has been very, very informative. We do post our podcast, so if you missed part of it, or if you want to see it again, by all means go to our YouTube channel, Apple Podcasts channel or Spotify channel and see it. If you missed any of our other podcasts, go ahead and take a look at some of them to see if anything else might be of interest to you. We want to thank everyone for always joining us and also for following us on our social media accounts. Everyone have a wonderful day. Take care.