What do Champagne and the workplace have in common?

Celynn Morin always knew that she wanted to be a healer. “I thought I wanted to go into medicine”, she says. “However, when I looked into the medical degree I discovered dietetics – and I’ve always loved food! I think that has partly to do with the fact that I was born in South Africa but my whole family is French, from the Champagne region. We just spend our lives eating, and drinking Champagne!”

Studying dietetics led to a clinical nutrition role, but Celynn became frustrated. “In those days, people didn’t go to the dietician for fun”, she says. “They went because they had diabetes, or gout, or cancer. I really wanted to be in the proactive health space: helping people who were healthy to stay healthy.”

In 2006, working with a South African health insurance company exposed Celynn to the concept of workplace wellbeing. She changed focus and began to work as a dietician within financial organisations in Johannesburg. She ran workshops to promote her practice, discovered a knack for speaking and moved to the UK. 

Since then – and since COVID-19 specifically – the understanding of wellbeing in the workplace has changed. “There’s more of a recognition that we bring our whole selves to work”, she says. “There’s so much we can’t control, like politics, like the weather. We can, though, do a lot for our inner state and our wellbeing.”

On December 11th, Celynn will be hosting a Vistage event: Sante – Celebrating Wellbeing. Register online here – and read on to discover just how much of a difference a focus on wellbeing can make to your workplace. 

The trickle-down effect

Celynn’s Champagne background has bubbled through to her work. “My family still often serves Champagne in a tower of glasses”, she says. “They pour the Champagne into the glass at the top of the tower, and it trickles down to fill the other glasses.”

She likens a business leader to the top glass in the tower. “That leader needs to be so full that they can overflow with effervescence to fill their team”, she explains. 

But what exactly does a leader need to do for this to happen? 

“Wellbeing comprises four elements”, continues Celynn. “It’s about aligning your physical being, your mental being, your emotional being and your sense of meaning.”

While there has been plenty of focus on mental health in the workplace in recent years, Celynn believes that the other elements of overall wellbeing have been somewhat ignored. “Of course, it’s vital to manage your mental health”, she says. “But you can’t do that if you’re dehydated, sleep-deprived and have a headache every afternoon.”

One of the tools that she will be sharing in her Vistage session is a questionnaire and assessment that gives leaders a wellbeing score. “People are often surprised”, she says. “They think they’re doing well, but when we look back objectively they’re not really hydrating, or eating enough plant-based foods for variety in the gut microbiome, or getting the right kind of strategic rest. We need those fundamentals in the busy lives we lead.”

“We need strategies to bring joy”

For Celynn, there’s a big difference between “joy” and “happiness”. “Often we’re happy when we have money, when work is easy, when life is going well and the weather’s great”, she explains.
“Joy, for me, is the ability to wake up in the morning and feel like I have self-worth – to feel like I’m contributing and that life is ok now, rather than looking to the future the whole time.”

She believes that it’s vital to weave this concept of joy into people’s lives. However, with society “wanting us to come from a place of fear and scarcity”, this can be a challenge. 

“It just makes sense for business, though”, she stresses. “Joyful, grounded, healthy people are much more productive and engaged – and they’re more likely to be retained.”

The seasonality of the working day

One framework that Celynn will be covering in her December event is the ‘seasons’ framework. “I take the seasons and I overlap them onto a 24-hour day”, she explains. “Spring is when you wake up, becoming conscious as you come out of sleep. Summer starts when you potentially trigger your stress response through something work-related, like checking your phone and seeing multiple unread emails – it’s the busy time of day.”

She describes autumn as the end of the day before you transition to going back to bed: the winter, when you want to sleep and hibernate. 

But why is this relevant to workplace wellbeing?

“I tend to get business leaders to focus on spring and autumn”, says Celynn. “They can’t really change the summer – there will always be fires to put out, meetings, unexpected issues and thousands of emails. What they can change are the moments when they wake up, when they’re on their own or with family, when they relax. Those are the moments when we need to bring in joy: hobbies, innovations, learning new things and giving life more meaning outside of work.”

“Joy is contagious”, she continues. “Through simple daily routines that we can put into place – no matter what our circumstances – we can start to appreciate the small moments that contribute to ongoing behavioural changes and our overall happiness.”
To put the fizz back into your life, register for Celynn’s Vistage event.

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