Streamed Live: Your Daily Dose of Happy with Allison Graham. She works with highly-accomplished men and women who love their work, but want more mental and emotional space away from the constant stress of the daily grind.

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TRANSCRIPT (Unedited)

The LOA TODAY: Your Daily Dose of Happy Podcast

Welcome to the LOA TODAY: Your Daily Dose of Happy. With me today is the woman who knows how to set personal boundaries.

0:20this is your daily dose of happy we are so happy you decided to join us today

0:26[Music] and Alex I thought I’d share with everybody else what you and I chatted

0:32about earlier today because it was fun it was just fun I mean people know we have guests on all

0:38the time we have a good guest and really great guest joining us today Allison Graham but uh um I’m also in the process

0:43you know every single day of dealing with you know who’s going to be the next guest on May 13th or whatever it is and

0:49I had a contact from somebody I actually got contacted from uh by them in late

0:55January early February and it was I mean they seemed enthusiastic

1:00their topic seemed okay and uh the top people she’d written a book about the psychology of procrastination and so she

1:08had a whole thing on that and okay well it sounds pretty cool you know so pick a date and uh we’ll bring you on to the show a month later she still hadn’t

1:14picked a date hmm procrastination got the best of her

1:21I got you again ADHD [Laughter]

1:27yeah it’s nice to know that they’re experts in the field you know right they are

1:33he’s our message right yeah you know if we have to learn it we have to teach it

1:40well I’m sure that we’ll be able to continue that uh theme a little bit more today uh Allison you you are into a

1:47topic that I think just about everybody on the planet can appreciate that’s how to have less stress in your life and so

1:54we’re going to be touching on that quite a bit but first of all welcome to the program and second of all tell us a little bit about yourself sure awesome

2:02both of you and be here for a daily dose of Happy who doesn’t want that right

2:08that’s awesome so my work is really you know it’s driven by my belief that a lot

2:14of us are making life harder than it needs to be and there are certain patterns that we have and it’s just part

2:21of the human experience and if we can look at those objectively and start to you know get better and we can lower our

2:28stresses and make it I like to encourage people to harness empowering stress and

2:34lower the destructive stress and I’m sure we’ll we’ll talk about how I Define those but yeah it’s uh you know what

2:41there there’s a way to make it uh it’s there’s a way to make stress fun

2:50that is it’s at least a t-shirt maybe a coffee cup

2:58stress is fun uh who wouldn’t want to you know that would just be uh the whole Power of Positive Thinking gone too far

3:05right like you know if I see it if I believe it enough it’ll work I love stress so yeah

3:13well that’s pretty cool that’s a good start right there so okay you laid the groundwork you said you’re going to Define for us the difference between

3:20what I’ll call the good stress and the bad stress so what’s the difference

3:25there’s a lot of difference in actual fact so a lot of times when we talk about stress we do hear good versus bad

3:32so if you are you know studied this at all you might call it you stress and

3:37distress so like you Euphoria like the good stuff and then the distress dis-ease and I use uh destructive stress

3:46so the way I look at that is it’s going to take you out of your Flow State it’s

3:52going to make you feel overwhelmed perhaps anxious it probably has you living in the future or living in the

3:58past and it’s it’s when you’re like each

4:03of us knows that feeling right and like maybe you have it like for me when I’m feeling what I consider destructive

4:09stress I get really shallow in my breathing I come up I’m like I can’t really focus on any one thing

4:16that to me is destructive stress and I will I will break down how we create it

4:22on the other side is the empowering stress and this is like sometimes people

4:28say to me look I’m so stressed I just I need the stress to go away and I’m like really because I think you’d be bored

4:35out of your mind [Laughter] I love it if you did not have enough

4:43stress in your life especially if you’re a high achiever especially if you’re somebody who like cares about your personal and professional development

4:49you need a certain amount of stress now that amount of stress is a little bit different for everybody

4:54and so for years I have been looking at this you know following along with what

5:00everybody teaches you’re good stress bad stress and then all of a sudden I went through some more really difficult

5:06challenges in my life and people who I love went through some really tough challenges and I couldn’t figure out why

5:14I was so stressed because I know how to manage my stress I’m like I can use the

5:21good stress the empowering I can I’m not creating the story lines and the negativity and all of the things that

5:27are making my life harder than it needs to be this is legitimately stressful

5:32and so I in my methodology added a third bucket

5:38and I call that survival stress reliable stress is the one you can’t

5:44escape it is ingrained in US it sends the signal that you or someone you love is

5:51in danger and if we’re not having those reactions then

5:56something’s off right like I mean if you’re uh you know a family member is

6:02getting a cancer diagnosis right if you are you yourself are sick

6:08or have some sort of a limiting um physical ailment that isn’t going to go away that’s an adversity right if you’re

6:16going to go bankrupt if you are you know your livelihood is you know so many families are struggling right now with

6:22the inflation and their food and they’re worried about how am I going to put food on the table for my kids like thinking

6:28about food versus Hydro that’s Survival stress and I don’t care how good you are at

6:34meditating and how good you are at exercising you can’t escape it however

6:40if you understand the power of good stress the empowering stuff then you can

6:45use that to get all of your responsibilities done in the most effective and efficient way

6:51and if you understand how destructive stress is created you can stop creating

6:57it to make the survival stress harder than it needs to be

7:03okay there’s my philosophy on stress wow not at the beginning all right well it

7:10brings a few thoughts to mind the first thought that brought to my mind was there are actually a number of different definitions for the word stress I mean

7:16like dictionary definitions oh like for instance one word One meaning is to emphasize I stress this no that’s

7:24nothing really damaging about that just like that’s where I’m focusing my attention yeah there’s so much and

7:30actually if you wanted to go down the rabbit hole there are actually like 12 different types of stress like if we’re

7:35actually talking about stress but who’s gonna do that like well we probably will here we go down

7:42rabbit holes all the time yeah I can take you down that one I was like 12.

7:48I’m out of here I got three I’m good yeah right because like my work I I like

7:55to see the patterns in human experience and then create Frameworks so it makes it really simple for someone who’s way

8:02too busy to dive into this work or who is just like trying to to look for

8:07little wins to figure out how to apply it in 12 different types of stress is not the way to go I agree with you

8:15because that would get a little bit confusing what what I did do I did a little um search I did a search online to look

8:21at the etymology of the origins of the word stress and it comes back to the word to the Latin word which is strictus

8:27and that means drawn tight which is that’s really an interesting

8:32thing yeah true

8:41it’s like that that sensation of everything in your body just like compresses that’s a really good oh gosh

8:49what you’ve done your homework I’ll take it a step further I also it

8:54also drives from an old French word estress which means narrowness or oppression

9:01I think that’s where we start zeroing in on what people really mean when they talk about stress they feel oppressed by

9:07it I don’t know that’s deep I have nothing

9:12to add I I’m like yeah well I think

9:17the key word is feeling oppressed or two words the feeling phrase is feeling oppressed you feel oppressed and anytime

9:23that I hear the word feel now these days after doing this podcast for all these years and talking to all these wonderful

9:29experts on so many topics the moment that I hear the word feeling I instantly in the back of my mind hear the word

9:34choice because we get to choose what we feel we

9:40might have we might have an instant reaction to something but in the longer term we get to choose what feeling we’re going to associate with something so are

9:47we going to choose to feel oppressed it’s the question that’s in my mind right now all right so we didn’t talk

9:52early am I allowed to push back on ideas absolutely oh yeah okay listen if you

9:58can’t push back all day all right but you’ll you’ll cut me off

10:03if I no I’m teasing that hard but here’s the interesting thing I actually don’t believe we can choose what we feel I

10:10believe we can influence the words we use to describe a situation that will

10:15interpret how we will react emotionally to a situation totally all on board for

10:22that but if you’re going through a survival stress scenario

10:28and you are grieving or fearful you can’t wish your way out

10:34of that you can’t be like I’m not going to feel stressed right now Yaya

10:39and so I you’re going to feel all those things you can’t overcome the grief

10:44process you can deny all you want heck I used to stay in denial for an extended period of time like when you think about

10:51the you know the grief stages right like the denial the anger the depression uh you know and then um the bargaining I

10:59think is one of them and then acceptance right right but like you can’t

11:05choose your way out of that and here’s why I push back on that because I I understand the thinking behind it and I

11:11understand when people say it it makes sense at a certain level but people take

11:16it for granted like or take it at face value and then they come to me as a coaching client and they’re like look I

11:22know I shouldn’t be focused on this I can’t control it and I’m like yeah but you care about it don’t you

11:27so if we don’t process it if we don’t honor the truth of the emotions

11:33we’re not going to be able to get by them we’re not going to be able to process them and then we end up judging ourselves and then we create even more

11:40destructive stress I I actually agree with almost everything you said there go for it was

11:45the almost yeah um the only thing that I would disagree with is your conclusion

11:51that that means that we can’t choose I think everything you point to said yes we can choose and let me tell you my

11:57side of that thing because I used to believe for for most of my life I believed I could not choose my feeling

12:02about any given situation until I was challenged to do so one time and I

12:07actually pulled it off and I said well wait a minute that’s not supposed to be possible what I learned out of it is that we

12:15actually can do it that doesn’t mean it’s easy to do for sure I’m gonna need an example

12:21I was on the day that I first experimented with this I was feeling pretty down I was feeling like life

12:28wasn’t getting anywhere like everything was against me and I went out and took a

12:33walk and went out with the idea of just doing some appreciation some nature

12:39appreciation and in the course of doing that nature appreciation to see if I could find a way to feel better about my

12:45situation love it I did and you did okay but that okay so

12:50that I totally agree with well like there’s nothing in there that you said that I disagree with that yeah that’s like that’s selecting a free feeling

12:56though that’s my point I’m not saying that your instant response is going to necessarily be what you want to be but

13:01you can always get to where you want to get to to have a different way of feeling about something than when you

13:08originally started depending on what type of a feeling it is and what the feeling is related to

13:16so if you’re having a really depressed day and you’re having you know you’re just

13:23feeling really overwhelmed and like I’m you know we all have that and we maybe not all of us but I used to have a

13:28really really really negative self-talk and you know like I it would drive me through a day and it would go not in the

13:35right direction you can imagine that totally is about

13:41something you can correct now naughty not easy as you said yeah but like if

13:46you’re going through a life adversity which I just I like my definition is a

13:51catastrophic external force that will forever change the way you know your life to be

13:58okay that is what I mean by an adversity and when we face that

14:04we can’t we can’t not go through the healing

14:10process which ultimately is the grieving process and even if we use the pandemic as an example well okay I agree with

14:15that but here’s the question I have for you yeah if you go through the healing process does that enable you to choose a

14:21different feeling absolutely it’s gonna so doesn’t that count I well see I think of choosing in

14:27the moment right I think she means initially yeah like well and even like it might

14:33take you you know who knows how long to grieve something that was really significant so would you count uh would

14:39you count a divorce is that kind of event oh possibly so interesting I had a client and he’s like okay so I explained

14:46my whole philosophy around uh destructive stress survival stress thing

14:51he said okay so let me get this right the fact that I was upset

14:57and feeling all these emotions and disappointment and anger and everything about the relationship splitting up

15:04that was survival stress I’m like yeah because somebody you love you know your your foundation

15:10and he said when I would close my door and totally focus on my work just to get away from it all I accidentally created

15:18an empowering stress and I’m like yeah and he’s like every time I picked a

15:24fight with my wife ex-wife every time he said every time I like would refuse to

15:31negotiate or sign the paperwork or you know would procrastinate all that or would complain about it I was creating

15:39destructive stress and making the divorce harder than it needed to be I’m like yeah

15:44So within that Circle of you know the stress design model is you can see the

15:51little nuances of it and you know what I’ll take it another step further that will will prove your point in our debate here

15:59we do that all the time so no problem let me offer you another little bit of

16:06your side of the story okay I believe in Silver Lining thinking

16:12I do not believe in positive thinking so you know

16:18very much so so Silver Lining thinking is

16:23um what would be an obstacle that you might have um

16:29I I can’t get a job okay and oh well you know what here’s a

16:34friend of mine who used to hate this because I’d be like you know what you didn’t get that job but there’s going to be something else that’s going to come

16:40along and it’s going to use your skill set even better and you know what happened another job came along

16:45better of course it did but but Silver Lining thinking is not

16:53um oh I’m so glad I didn’t get that job right like because that that doesn’t

16:58work I remember uh it was driving down the highway and a friend of mine I was speaking at a conference she came with

17:04me and uh she’s like oh my gosh I forgot my phone

17:10and I’m like we gotta go back you can’t leave your phone in another city I mean that doesn’t work right and so we turn

17:17around on the highway and at first I was like oh I’m so exhausted you know like let’s get home

17:23and as we are turning back around on the highway I was like you know what all good something good will come out of

17:29this and uh lo and behold if we were going along we got into traffic yeah

17:34there was a huge accident and when I worked out the timing backwards if we wouldn’t have gone back no dear yeah

17:41yeah we would have been right in it yeah potentially so I think that’s a choice

17:46to always find a silver lining in any situation that you would bring a bit of positivity to it that isn’t false

17:55right like I was um I work with a lot of corporate like groups okay so I do my

18:00training program and then we often they end up saying we want more and we do group coaching

18:06and so I I started up my third session with this group and around

18:12and the guy comes on he goes look I am so exhausted from propping up my team

18:19and trying to tell them everything is going to be okay

18:29yeah he’s like I am so exhausted and I’m like why do you feel like you need to prop up your team right like first of

18:37all they’re they know that there are changes afoot and then they’re probably thinking you’re like it’s actually

18:43eroding your trust it’s exhausting you and it’s eroding your trust no I’m not

18:49suggesting when somebody comes in and they’re like gosh are we going to lose our job what’s going on with the restructuring Etc that you go look I

18:55haven’t got a clue and you probably should just start like saving your money and like you know downsizing your house

19:01right like I don’t think that’s the answer we need to go but can we neutralize it um

19:08can we neutralize the negative storylines that’s all I’m asking people to do just neutralize it don’t go all

19:13over to magic fairy dust right rainbows unicorns oh everything’s gonna be awesome

19:19neutralize the negative so we’re not adding to the story I think something else cool

19:25comes when you do that especially when you do it for the first time when you do it for the first time you get better at

19:31it true that right so that the next time that something comes along and it’s like well

19:37shoot I can handle that one I’ve done that one before no big deal yep yep bring it on no don’t tempt don’t

19:43Temptations don’t need any more to deal with

19:49oh my goodness that’s like one of the things my husband hates about me is my silver line in

19:55thinking oh I love that yeah drive him nuts about that that’s all

20:02right so why does he not like it because I’m too positive about everything

20:10and it gets under his he was like can I just be negative for five minutes

20:15and I’m like yeah but where’s that gonna get you well you know what though again here we go

20:24I’m ready let’s go are we screaming this or is this we are this is fun oh yeah oh

20:31yeah right live and recorded

20:36so here’s the thing I okay I’m gonna go back to when uh

20:42covid first happened pandemic we all remember March 2020 and I was said to have the best quarter of my year I mean

20:49I’ve been in the business for what 16 years now uh best quarter so far in my business

20:54in that spring and I remember sitting there on Friday night and I toasted uh

21:00with a glass of wine this is right for the lockdown and I said well at least I still have my Texas Keynote good and by nine o’clock that night

21:08they’ve canceled um and so I had to look at it very

21:13strategically because I’m like hey Brazilians this is my my bailiwick like I could move through this and I was like

21:19I’m feeling I didn’t know the survival stress moments yet I didn’t understand that but I did know that any time I

21:26tried to deny negativity when it’s real

21:31I did myself emotionally a disservice yes because I would try to cover it up

21:38with the magic fairy dust and so the way I got through that tough

21:43time was I would literally set a timer for depending on how much I felt I needed yeah for 5 10 15 minutes I would

21:50get on the floor I dare say underneath my dining room table with my dog and I would just like cry and feel the whole

21:57fear of the world and let it in and then my alarm would go off and I would like

22:03maybe snooze once if I needed to just to shift gears and I’d feel so much relief

22:08that I would come back up and I could be like all right what do I need to get done in order to move my company forward

22:14I got to ask you something too because it’s such an interesting choice of location why under the dining room table because it was his favorite spot and he

22:20didn’t understand I needed oh okay all right I don’t know I’ve always liked under the dining room table it was

22:26something I did from at my grandmother’s house it was in my my great aunt’s house oh my God I’m always under the dining

22:33room table oh yeah there must be some but you know what as a kid didn’t you do that yes

22:38yeah yeah there’s probably something very um uh oh what’s that word okay do you think

22:45of the word I’m looking for like very um comforting or like home like childhood

22:51fetal position yeah I don’t know maybe that’s why I did but it was just because that’s where my dog wasn’t when I’d be

22:57like come on out time to cuddle he’s like shouldn’t you be working like why why are you bugging me in my afternoon

23:04uh why haven’t we gone to the office yet right right

23:09so anyway that is funny though I I love the way that we’re carrying on this

23:14conversation though because it it kind of illustrates really nicely how

23:20our feelings change with our thought process and the thought process is both an

23:25emotional thought process and a mental thought process as well as a physical thought process it’s all three kind of wrapped into one and spiritual you can

23:31actually throw that one in there too and that combination is is that’s where

23:37our power comes from our ability to transmute to change this into that to say okay

23:44this is where I am right now what’s going to take for me to get to that over there and that’s an amazing power that we have

23:50we may not appreciate it but that’s an amazing power and we often may not do it yeah oh absolutely yeah because we’ve

23:57talked ourselves out of it or whatever else oh yeah yep uh we can look at it and be like yeah I know I should be

24:03doing that but it doesn’t mean we’re going to do that you know like we’re all that’s all a

24:10part of it yeah and it’s it’s interesting because this whole

24:15um you know journey of becoming self-aware and wrapping and understanding the

24:23cyclical nature of physical mental emotional and sure we can add in the spiritual piece of it and you know I

24:30have um you know part of what launched all of this work and the this body of um like

24:35my whole methodology is the fact that I have chronic neuropathic pain and I’ve had that now for 17 years it

24:43was a surgery that went wrong and it’s uh you know it sort of goes up and it

24:48comes down and it goes all around but it’s quite intense like and I’m you know

24:53I’m always trying to encourage people to recognize you don’t know what’s going on behind

24:59people’s lives when they’re off the camera all right so you know to uh just

25:04to paint a picture I had um a nap before we came here and a call with my internist

25:10and then I came on with you guys and so I think what happens is when you

25:15understand this nature of how physical can interact with your

25:21um with your mental and your emotional right it’s like if your physical being is off

25:27then it’s going to make it easier to be negative and to not feel like doing

25:34something right so it influences our emotions and then we our being gets depressed a bit and so having that

25:42ability to be so in the present moment Embrace with the wholeheartedness all of

25:49the uh you know I often call it the suckage right the stuff that sucks in our lives

25:54and we don’t want to diminish that but then still show up to do what you need to do in a way that you love doing it

26:02and with a kitty cat on your uh on your hands right in your arms off

26:09um Winston don’t you see the cue of what you should be doing I’m saying Rusty’s looking rather lazy

26:16right now yeah right he’s like

26:22thank you my dog just said I don’t work for free and he just went back to bed yeah

26:28this guy’s kind of figured out when I start a show and that’s what he’s gotten into the habit now whenever the show started okay it’s time for me to get in

26:34the way get in front of them against it yeah okay this is my cue I get it yeah yeah hi Joy

26:41is that Joy oh that’s a perfect name

26:47she loves the mic I mean he loves the mic I’m sorry yeah

26:53that’s great um yeah so anyway I was but here’s the

26:59thing we’re laughing and I think that that’s such a great medicine and they can’t

27:05like all of the humor all of the you know little clips and the the fun that we have can’t diminish the fact in the

27:12severity of what many people are going through right now oh sure and it’s like hear the message in the laughter feel

27:20the laughter to find that Joy oh my gosh perfect timing joy every time that word

27:26comes in just walk by and you know people are in so many ways they’re

27:33isolating more and more they’re burning out they’re feeling like they’re suffocating you know I can’t tell you

27:38the number of Executives who I’ve talked to who in you know behind the scenes are

27:44saying like look I thought I was gonna be like I was going to get to this point in my career and I understand these are

27:50first world world problems right like I make a lot of money but I can’t breathe

27:55I can’t think I don’t like I feel like I’m not giving anything left to my family because I’m so exhausted like

28:02this is a really serious issue that we’re faced and we need to be able to have fun with it right and find those

28:09little moments of humanity and and don’t you think like I I yeah I think so it’s

28:15not just the the executives I mean it’s it’s the lower Echelon workers too maybe even more so you know the ones who are

28:21working three jobs just to you know keep food on the table or whatever like stress to the max

28:27you know what and it’s every and you know here’s the thing and sometimes people say to me well you know

28:33um I know people always have it worse and the reality is there will always be

28:39somebody who has it worse than you um and from my perspective that is

28:45intended to be perspective not an Elixir for your own suffering in

28:51yours yeah very good point yes it doesn’t take it away right and I think

28:57juggle time well he’s really he’s actually going at me with his paw like come on you’re

29:03supposed to be paying attention to me I saw a clause there well that’s the way his car works yeah it’s true

29:09otherwise I’d be really upset with him but yeah right that’s cute

29:15um but like it every person and I think that’s why we end up with people with

29:20such severe mental health challenges all across the board right they don’t want

29:26to necessarily share it and then they feel embarrassed because well maybe I don’t deserve to have this sensation I

29:33should be happier I should be able to choose my mood I should be able to a lot of shouldn’t and it’s it’s just you know

29:41what what you need to do is what you’re in right now and we want to make the best of it with what the tools you have

29:48not to mention all the stigmas that can be attached to it I think that’s changing though don’t you it definitely

29:54is yeah it’s a lot for sure it used to be but it’s not like they’ve gone away there’s they’re still around they’re just they aren’t in first place anymore

30:01[Laughter] but which place are they in and what’s

30:06in first they’re probably still in the top five I’m not sure we could probably debate that one but yeah they they

30:11haven’t gone away entirely let’s put it that way yeah so there’s still I mean there are we had a guest yesterday who

30:19was simultaneously exploring the ability to release and express emotions negative

30:26emotions but feeling embarrassed that he was doing it so clearly there was some stigma going on there

30:33so why is there such a a fear okay so let’s play this

30:39game imagine you are a child and you fall off your bike and you’re fortunate enough for an adult to come and pick you

30:46up and they take you in and they you know clean your wound and they put a

30:51Band-Aid on it and then they kiss it better and they go it doesn’t hurt anymore does it and you

30:57as a child are thinking yeah right don’t know what’s happening here but it

31:03still hurts but what else are you trying to sell me here yeah okay right but we’re going for ice cream so I’m gonna

31:09yeah I’m gonna agree right right right right

31:14and then we get a little older and all of a sudden you know we’re bullied or whatever happens on the

31:20playground oh they’re just jealous or oh they’re just you know like all of these throwaway lines oh don’t take it

31:26personally it’s not about you it’s about them well it kind of feels personal right sure and so we’re but then we’re

31:33like okay I’m gonna stuff it down again and then we become adults and we get out into the world we were taught don’t cry

31:41right and the reason we don’t want other people to cry is because we don’t want to have to feel the emotions the empathy

31:46of watching somebody else cry right it makes you uncomfortable right but they

31:51need to cry like because they have something to cry about so let’s allow them to process that emotion like energy

31:58in motion right and so we’ve got to give it some some movement because what I’ve

32:04found is like like I used to have this misguided belief that happiness if I wasn’t happy

32:12I was failing and at the end of the day right but the

32:18thing is Happy is not neutral neutral is neutral happy is in relation to sad

32:26that’s right Joy enter stage left

32:31is in relation to despair

32:36right like we need all of it and when I finally figured that out and I think it

32:42was the happiness trap that taught me that was that happiness was not a the natural state of being it was one state

32:48of being and we had to be the book I read years ago and so now it’s like okay

32:53when I’m feeling the sadness or the despair or the pain or whatever it is that’s going on or the fear that’s

32:59legitimate I’ll lean into it not to get stuck in it and not to become

33:06a victim but to process it and to go oh yeah that’s awful or yeah that sucks and

33:12just how does that feel in my body and live it and give it an honor it give myself the space and the grace to

33:18feel it so that because I’m thinking hey if I’m feeling this crappy thing down

33:24here one day I’m going to be way up here right like because I it’s the the opposite ends of the spectrum

33:31so that’s my thinking around emotions but I think we’re taught to avoid the

33:37low ones because nobody likes how they feel and nobody likes to have to have other people around them feeling it

33:43and then pretending we need to be happy when if we just allowed ourselves to

33:49feel the uh we could actually feel happy more often absolutely true yeah in fact you were

33:55when you were talking about how we’re basically taught you know don’t cry that’s being taught that it reminded me

34:03of there was actually a song Big Boys Don’t Cry it came up from the 1950s and

34:09and it epitomized the whole and it was it was aimed at everyone but it was especially aimed at little boys because

34:15boys I mean you’re going to grow up to be a man and men don’t cry that’s just that’s not allowed I hate that it is

34:23such a destructive teaching it’s incredibly destructive sorry I was gonna say we should bring

34:29your husband in and get him

34:35yeah he’s one he’s one of them he’s one of them yeah I was like if you don’t cry when I walk down the aisle I’m gonna be

34:41so mad and he was like you’re gonna be mad I don’t know I couldn’t see my contact

34:48fogged up but he says he didn’t he says he didn’t I don’t have I have pictures he didn’t look like he was crying you

34:54did look like he was smiling I was I was at her wedding he looked like he was pretty happy yeah yeah that’s pretty

35:00cool yeah and I wanted that moment I wanted that oh he lost it because she’s so beautiful and I didn’t get it tears

35:06yeah but it’s not about that wedding moment it’s about the lifetime when he wakes up with you and goes oh my God

35:12look at whatever yeah yeah I guess so I can spin anything

35:20yeah well if you want to put logic to it fine but you know

35:26crushing your child to a dream yeah I’ve only dreamed about it for what 38

35:33years in my crying moment no they do it on TV it should happen in

35:39real life I don’t know where are those W Network

35:44uh you know storyline they have to come from

35:50somewhere anyway oh man well I guess that’s part of what we were

35:56talking about earlier isn’t it where these storylines come from yeah and it’s um

36:03it’s interesting because I I don’t know where they come from I think it comes sometimes from our youth from our

36:08patterns from the people around us how we choose to uh you know what we choose

36:15to put our into our mind each and every day like you know I’ve had to like I’ve

36:21made a conscious decision like every night I go to bed and I’m watching a YouTube video of some sort that is

36:27educational and educational from a personal development Journey like I’m

36:32watching all the impact theories you know and like all the big ones at mylett

36:37show Etc like watching everybody constantly because it’s like I could do that or I could watch something that’s

36:43going to drain my energy and put me into a negative State before I go to bed I

36:49don’t want to watch the news before I go to sleep because it’s just going to work on the subconscious and make me even more anxious yeah yeah that’s great

36:57because basically what you’re saying is I’m taking my choice I’m taking control of it yeah it’s going to be mine and you

37:04you can’t change it sorry good luck [Music] and you know sometimes you’re going

37:10through a survival stress situation and you know enough to to turn that off and to you

37:19know be able to sleep and rest and recharge and you know feel okay but if we want to practice the the feelings of

37:28joy and happiness in the um ability to shift the story lines and

37:33neutralize them at least like literally let’s create a nice one over here but give your mind at least three options

37:39because oh yeah see this is one of my biggest things I work with people on is

37:44their storyline right so we have this negative storyline and they think they need to go over here to positive as we

37:50were talking about before and it’s like okay I just need you to neutralize it

37:55but if you only give your brain two alternatives

38:00okay so let’s say um uh you know people will worry about a

38:05meeting that’s coming up or a job interview okay and they spend a Time worrying

38:11about it and they’re like oh my gosh like I’ve got this meeting or this client called and said you know they want to talk to me about something and

38:17the natural default is well are they gonna fire me

38:22right okay so there’s the negative storyline and power positive thinking would be come up with a well are they

38:29going to give me a promotion right like all the way to the other end and in the absence of a third option your brain

38:37will default to the negativity sure it’ll call BS on this you know big one

38:42so I’m like okay uh they just want to review the contract details well that’s

38:48very neutral isn’t it and maybe they want to give me a promotion and maybe they want to fire me

38:53well at least your brain is confused enough to go ah could be any of them and maybe you’re worrying a little bit yep

38:59right you can detach from it yeah the proximity to where you’re at is really

39:04really important yeah I think I I agree with you I think that many positive thinking teachers tend to forget that

39:11you can’t leap you can only take small steps so if you’re feeling depressed

39:16going for Joy is probably not your best bet is too far away

39:22yeah but it’s almost unfeasible because it’s too far away it is yeah yeah but if

39:28you’re willing to go from depressed to feeling pissed off about something what’s that’s a step up first of all and

39:34it’s nearby you can reach that one that’s right and you can

39:40and it’s in the little moments and in the overall arching theme of your life right like you know I have a friend

39:46we’re always joking and she’s like I just want the Magic win right she’s like oh I’m gonna do every day is a different idea

39:54if you would have spent the last six months when you chased a new idea every three days

40:00right just doing the boring plan that we initially set out

40:07you would be mine but it’s like we want the big leaps right and sometimes you

40:15get them but you can have success and you can have failure and if your stress response

40:22if you have these patterns where you’re misplacing your emotions and building the negative story lines and uh you know

40:28engaging in all those habits that are the barriers to Performance that I call them then you know what you’re gonna do

40:35that in moments of failure and you’re gonna do it in moments of success because your patterns do not change

40:42until you change them the circumstances don’t matter

40:47Alex is having a real strong moment right now not because I had because

40:52Allison’s right my husband doesn’t need to be on this episode because you’re talking to him right now like he’s an

40:58All or Nothing type of person like it’s I want my tattoo shop if I can’t get it right now I’m not doing it yeah forget

41:05tattoos close them yeah yeah shut them all down throw out the ink it’s done

41:10and I’m like but dude there’s levels to this [ __ ] like calm down

41:15could you have five people over for a tattoo party I don’t even know if that’s legal but

41:22yeah I’m like can you just do a friend’s tattoo and that one and you’re you’re all the way at 10 and it’s like we we

41:28got to get to point five before right like I need you to stop and breathe like

41:34it’s gonna be a while but he’s just so impatient he’s so impatient and he’s full of it’s a big ballistress part of

41:41that impatience is this is something that took me a long time to learn I finally learned that really you can

41:46learn to take the big strides but in order to do that you have to take the small steps first if you try to skip the

41:52small steps you’ll never get to the big strides yeah he’s got to learn that he’s not listening to me

42:00you can have this huge jump though you can actually have them rarely but you gotta learn to do the small steps first

42:06or you’ll never get there yeah the imagery that is in my mind

42:12is do you remember track and field did you guys do track and field when you were a kid forced you yes of course oh

42:19okay all right and Walt was like yeah let me in that sandbox and long jump but

42:25um not me I I just was like saw that as a reason to skin my knee but anyway

42:31um yes if you think about the imagery of that the longest jumping like long jump

42:37right you know where you run run run run run and then you get the big leap is exactly what Walt just said you gotta do

42:43the small jump so you can get the big leap oh yeah my brain can’t stop yeah

42:52I’m using next time this happens I’m using that one all right yeah it’s a good analogy it’s a long jumper

42:59yeah yeah so you know you can’t exactly uh what was the one I think it’s called short jump when you literally just like

43:06stand from nothing and then you have to jump further ahead do you know like there’s a running long jump It’s a standing broad jump

43:13okay so he really did do track um you know that one actually

43:19yeah I don’t think we called it anything that fancy you’re like just stand there but you

43:26don’t get as far no right so there you go that’s the

43:32yeah anyway that was the imagery that came as you were sharing was it because it was good imagery something else you

43:37mentioned that um I think really needs to be drawn out some more I think it’s excellent you talked about the what we call polarity or contrast so you talk

43:44about how you have to have the negative in order to appreciate the positive that the feeling bad goes along with the

43:49feeling good there there are two sides of the same coin in a sense and one of

43:54the best things that I learned from from guests here on the podcast actually was

44:00valuing truly valuing that so-called negative side of the equation

44:06finding that not only yeah okay I don’t like it necessarily I don’t have to like it it’s not about you must like this

44:13thing but you can learn to appreciate it and then on the surface that seems

44:18impossible until you dig in deeper and you find I guess it really isn’t impossible in fact

44:26it’s quite possible to do I just kind of made this little thing in my head that said well if I don’t like it then it

44:32must not be possible to appreciate it yeah you know what I like to do in those

44:37situations is uh I start my sentence off with but at least

44:43so but at least you know and that’s and that’s where you can put your silver lining thought in in after that sentence

44:50but at least it’s like well my car broke down but at least AAA didn’t take three hours or but at least it’s not snowing

44:57you know something like that yeah and at least you have AAA yes that’s

45:04right and somebody can come get you right like groceries are through the bill like

45:11through the roof right yeah I I go grocery shopping and I literally do a little prayer of gratitude every time I

45:18pay the bill oh good practice seriously like I just am like thank God like that I can do

45:24this yeah and not every day you know have I been able to like it’s been a lot of roller coasters 17 years in business

45:30I mean I’ve been through the ups I’ve been through the downs and uh some pretty low lows and you know detaching

45:39for money and your service is probably one of the most powerful things I ever did

45:46um it’s a it’s an interesting thing too because even after we become skilled at

45:51doing exactly what you just did which I love you know finding a way to to appreciate the fact that I could buy

45:58groceries despite the fact that grocery prices have gone up it’s also important to recognize doesn’t mean you’re going

46:03to be immune to seeing a price rise and having a response to it the milk went up 30 cents I said what

46:10the milk went up there he said oh yeah I could afford it how good right right I had to go through the first one to get

46:15to the second one right and it’s like and you don’t you also don’t know like I

46:21have a lot of friends who lost their businesses in covid right like who just

46:26were really really successful and it all came crumbling down and you don’t know

46:32what’s around the corner you don’t know how you know like we just have to

46:37embrace it and then trust ourselves because we don’t want to live in a state of fear right like that future that’s

46:43just another layer of destructive stress but if we can trust ourselves to deal with the worst that we can rise above it

46:50that we can go through it not even rise above it just go through it feel the suckage process it and then keep on

46:57going like that that becomes a state of flow in life that I I believe and I I

47:04hope people can get to so let’s talk about something you kind of alluded to there we really we’re

47:10going to talk about at the beginning then we got off on this really great rabbit hole and I love the fact that we did it but good stress or I’m not even

47:17sure good stress but productive stress let’s put it that way how would you

47:22describe what what is the essence of useful productive helpful stress uh it’s

47:28flow flow state so um I am like I I call it empowering

47:34stress because I don’t even like again good stress right um it’s kind of boring but like here’s how

47:41it works there are three elements that you need and apparently the Sun is going down uh or it’s changing and I think

47:48I’ve lost my light so nobody will judge hey the good news is 99 of the people catching this are listing only so you’re

47:54okay oh my goodness well welcome okay um yeah so the sun is uh is moving

48:01anyway I I digress empowering stress has three things we need a deadline that’s reasonable

48:10a goal that’s focused and accountability that we can’t get out

48:16of Okay so we can manufacture our days to get these

48:24states of flow into our days if we don’t have focused work blocks that’s you know

48:30what people could call them Focus work blocks you can call them whatever you’d like um it’s like that is a state of flow no

48:38notifications no interruptions just I’m going to get this thing done

48:45and when we’re going through really tough times especially in our lives we want to be sure that we’re using that

48:51formula to get the the biggest like so we can get all the little Naggy things off our list right because it’s like

48:58those little things that can just hang over our head for weeks because we’ve got to do it

49:05like I can’t believe the number of people who are like I gotta do my taxes I gotta do my taxes and it’s like a really big deal it’s like you know what

49:10just do the taxes just do the taxes I mean come on hold on

49:16right do what part but here I was what I end up doing with things like that is like I break it down like I did with a

49:22client the other day I’m like look you got these taxes you got to get them done so we’re gonna go get the box of receipts

49:28step one just do that next time right go get this uh you know sit down and open

49:35the box of receipt like I mean you can make it as granular as you want because you can it can like trick your body or

49:40your mind into momentum right when we break things down but uh back to the concept around empowering stress is it’s

49:47like okay we need to put a time limit around it we need to know that there is a break

49:53coming up at the end so that we can actually like because if

49:59we work for four or five hours straight and then you get up and you go oh my gosh I’m so hungry I’m like I can’t even

50:04move I’m so stiff and I haven’t gone to that like I gotta go you know the bathroom right after drinking a thing of

50:09water like I can’t believe the number of people who work like that and it’s like no no we want to be sure that you’re

50:15getting your body and your mind a chance to come away from it accomplish

50:20something and then you know go away from it and then come back and accomplish something and then go away from it and

50:26come back and accomplish something and we actually accomplish more when we have that sort of structure in our lives

50:32around uh and that’s a way to use empowering stress

50:38I love that I’m thinking about that in a number of different contexts one context is as a

50:44business owner I’m a small business owner yeah and as a business owner who employs people

50:50my way of accomplishing what you just described is to delegate like crazy oh

50:56period just delegate delegate how much what’s left of my plate that I haven’t delegated yet how can I delegate that

51:02interesting so here is all right back to permission to speak freely

51:09yeah sure okay um now you obviously have staff who can

51:14absorb the delegation oh yeah you have to you have to have that part figured out oh yeah that’s key right because in

51:23so in the small business world you’re and you’re the leader so you can control that right like you can get more staff

51:28on you can expand your width like you know your adapt your skill set Etc what I’m seeing happening in the

51:35corporate Market to your point before yes the executives might be stressed but so are the people who are working for

51:41them the whole time and so when this person decides they’re going to be a master you know masterful

51:47um delegator and I’m going to give everything away and they’re like oh I got another left

51:53on my plate life is good and their whole team is ready to quit because they don’t have any bandwidth

52:00and they’re freaking out and I would suggest that that’s not actually delegating I agree yes but it can happen oh yeah oh

52:09there are lots and lots of really sucky managers because that’s really what it is it’s a manager who doesn’t know what the freak he’s doing he thinks he thinks

52:16he can just dump on other people and that’s delegating that’s not delegating that’s burying

52:23go to Great uh distinction delegation in a good way and how do you

52:29protect your team from doing that or do you you just know that they have the bandwidth and you expect them to get it done no no no no not at all in fact I’m

52:37always interested in evaluating for my own thought process

52:43how far are they having to push themselves is it too much in other words

52:48am I overworking them in any way are there ways I can take the pressure off of them in fact that’s one of the best

52:54ways that I find to go about doing delegation because when I when I’m in this situation it doesn’t happen much

53:00anymore but I used to run into it quite a bit if I’m in a situation where

53:05there’s nobody I can delegate to because everybody is so overwhelmed yeah it’s a

53:11beautiful signal to me that my system sucks mm-hmm

53:17exactly so I need to rework the system at that point yeah there is now that now

53:24that’s something I may need to find also I mean they may need to find somebody else to delegate that to and I’ll

53:29probably have to come up with a budget to do that I’ll probably have to come up with funding to do that that is part of my job

53:35but by the same token what’s so wrong with that why why are we going to run

53:41away from that why are we going to go out of our way to just dump on people instead of having to deal with that right and then making your problems

53:47everybody else’s problems exactly yeah and that’s that’s not a good way to do

53:52it but then there’s the other thing is though is you can’t delegate your body and you can’t delegate your brilliance

53:59no you can’t that’s a word yeah so everything else probably has a system

54:06that can be delegated right like there is probably some way

54:12and I used to say you can’t delegate your body your mind or your Brilliance and now with like chat gbt I feel like

54:19um I just call it chat chat because like the GPT is like hard for me to say so

54:26um you know the mind can be delegated as well so you know I think to some degree but that’s another conversation so I

54:33think like you’re Brilliance because you can’t delegate it to the point where you have nothing left to do

54:40well actually I think you can you can delegate to the point where you have nothing left to do what you can’t do is delegate to the point where everybody

54:45else has too much to do because that’s not actually delegation right but how could you be here you couldn’t delegate

54:51this part of your job just because I can delegate something

54:58doesn’t mean I want to okay yeah but if you were to say like

55:04let me take it back let me take it back a trip to what you were talking about before because I think it tied in really quickly you talked about Brilliance I’ll

55:10translate Brilliance into creative

55:16the creation process is where Brilliance comes in and where where it comes from too and ultimately any job that we do

55:24and I’m using the word job Loosely because it actually goes beyond a career job but any job that we’re doing we’re

55:30if it’s a job that we really want to keep doing it it’s because we feel creative in that space

55:35otherwise we wouldn’t want to do it there would be no point to it other than getting some income but

55:41beyond that there would be no point to doing the work so why would I want to delegate that part

55:46right I mean if I want to delegate that then the question really becomes why do I want the job in the first place

55:53true although I don’t know if everybody’s in a position that we’re in where we love our work

55:58I agree I guarantee they’re not totally agree yeah yeah yeah and we have a long

56:04way to go on this one no doubt about that oh yeah yeah yeah part of that I

56:09think is a conversation that goes again beyond the three minutes that we have left uh but that conversation has to

56:15really come down to your own self-development kind of look at what you were talking about earlier

56:21Alison you know where are you giving your attention you you give your attention to at the end of the day watching that YouTube video that that

56:28helps you with your self-development rather than that draining TV show or whatever it is you know that’s just an example of of

56:34the kind of work that you have to do in order to get to the point where you can do the kind of Delegation we’re talking about that’s right yeah oh puppy yeah

56:42yeah hey Winston I know honey it’s his turn

56:48[Laughter] where is my dog oh my gosh I know there’s so many heroes in there out

56:54there yeah there’s there’s activity out there yeah like we’ve got two minutes

57:00left you can make it you can make it well before we we can’t lose you yet

57:06because we got to get some information from me okay so first of all well first of all we love this has been a great

57:11conversation okay you know you know your your teachings and so forth somebody who wants to work with you how do they find

57:17you uh alisongram.com that’s the the hub for everything and then I did I I

57:23created just a sign up sheet for you for your your community it’s backslash Loa

57:30oh and so you can go there and I send out a weekly lift up so it’s just a really uh I wouldn’t say it’s a quick

57:36read but it’s a some sort of motivational or challenge or something that is there and then I’ll add in some

57:43sort of a you know personal capacity development or I don’t know I’ll figure out something that’ll be on that sheet

57:50just special for your people who are like looking for that dose of Happiness right yeah yeah so they can go to

57:57alisongram.com all right we’ll make sure we put that into the show Notes too to make it easy

58:03for people love to see it please do very cool this has been really great I’ve just so much loved it I’m Alex I mean

58:10well if you had to pick one thing what’s what’s the thing that jumps out to you more than anything else out of all the

58:15stuff we’ve talked about here oh I liked all her um ideas and definitions of stress that

58:21was that’s what got me because I was like I know someone like that and that and back

58:28it’s not me

58:33no judgment no no realistically I don’t subscribe to

58:40stress so yeah there we go well you know my next book is going to be called the stress illusion

58:46um so stay tuned that’s coming out late this year so all right look at that we

58:51got an exclusive yeah that’s cool I like that one last thing I need to do and

58:57that’s to uh tell you something else and that I like to tell to all the givers who come onto this program because you definitely are a giver and uh givers uh

59:04give so much because they come into a podcast like this one you know they do the writing they do all the stuff that they’re reaching out to people in a lot

59:10of different ways and there are many people you’ll never meet you’ll never see who are Health spy stuff that you put out there and you never see it you

59:17don’t well sometimes you do if you’re lucky enough you get you know a contact oh wow you know I heard you on the podcast or I spread the article you

59:23wrote but most of the time you don’t see it you don’t hear it and I think we should be recognized for it anyway so on behalf of all those people who you’ve

59:30never met you’ve never seen thank you for what you do every what you’re continuing to do because it’s so important that makes my heart sing thank

59:37you thank you very much and thank you Alex your heart your heart is always singing because it’s making my heart

59:42sing all the time so we sing yeah you two are awesome doing really fun this is a lot of fun a

59:50lot of laughs a lot of laughs so thank you guys very much thank you podcast listen news everywhere we’ll see you all

59:55next time here on LOA today goodbye everybody [Music]

1:00:25thank you