The Stories We Tell Ourselves Are… Kelly McGannon Explains How To Live Your Best Life: Business Podcast
Summary
Kelly McGannon is a sought-after leadership and body language coach with deep expertise in self-awareness/mind-body connection, energy management, strategy, and culture change.
On top of all that, she’s a second degree black belt in Tae Kwon Do!
Kelly explains how to write our own story and how to program our mind to live out the story we all want to live our best lives!
You don’t want to miss this episode…
A full transcript of the episode is below.
Brandon:
Welcome to another episode of Build a business success Secrets. I’m your host brain and see White. And today we have a really wonderful episode for you with Kelly McCann in Kelly and I did a nine day Siri’s called Turn Yourself into a Powerhouse and we did it during the Koven locked down. We had Aton of people attended and had some great feedback, and some people thought, I’m said, we want more. So Kelly and I decided to this podcast on two topics over those nine days. We cover today the stories we tell ourselves.
Brandon:
Sometimes they’re not always true. And how can we tell ourselves a story that brings us to where we want to go?
Brandon:
And then sometimes we tell ourselves stories that create a tremendous amount of stress.
Kelly:
And how do you deal with that?
Brandon:
We go through a whole bunch of exercises here. In this episode, Kelly walks us through how to manage thes sort of stress reactions that we have. Kelly is very humble, and we don’t doesn’t talk about this tremendous amount about her background, but she is an expert and sought after for her body language expertise.
Brandon:
She’s a body language coach, as we probably if you’re listening, you know, 80% if not more, of your communications time by body language.
Brandon:
So how can you control your body language? And how can you read other people’s body language? And then she has expertise and just self awareness and mind, body connection and energy management. All these things and she uses of it. She actually has incredibly diverse background, which is going on.
Brandon:
But just to mention a few things. She studied at Yale Divinity School, stunned advanced things at Princeton. She has studied, which I find absolutely fascinating applied mythology. And she’s working on a degree from young Society of Washington on depth psychology, which I find fascinating having a background in psychology. And if all that smart stuff hasn’t scared you already, here’s the kicker. She’s a second degree black belt in taekwondo, and she’s working on a cool book called Being Human Is Hard, but doesn’t have to be so today you’re gonna love this episode.
Brandon:
We go through about an hour of stories.
Brandon:
We tell ourselves how you can tell yourself a different story, and some exercises and hanky command and stress, especially during these times before we jump into it, I got a special offer for you.
Brandon:
I have a monthly newsletter called Build a Business Success Secrets that comes to your snail mail, and it’s packed with cool articles that I have found and collected over the month, covering everything from mind body in business.
Brandon:
So your health, how to train your mind and, of course, business articles.
Brandon:
If you’re interested, I have a special offer.
Kelly:
You can find it at B Success secrets dot com that B is in business success secrets dot com Check it out when you get a chance.
Brandon:
Something special that will come into your mailbox every month that I can offer you as a thank you for listening.
Brandon:
So that’s not wait any longer.
Brandon:
Let’s jump in, get right to it. Killing Connie on a story we tell ourselves and had a deal.
Brandon:
It’s trust everyone and welcome to another business.
Brandon:
We have Kelly here on a Thursday.
Brandon:
Thank you so much for joining us today.
Brandon:
My pleasure.
Brandon:
I’m so happy to be here, Brandon. Thank you.
Kelly:
Ah, you’re joining from the other coast and I know that it is approaching your lunch time, so we’ll get started fast for everybody. As I said, the introduction killing. I did nine days of turning yourself into a powerhouse and covered a whole host of subjects everything from start stress response to the stories. You tell yourself, Teoh. Well, Kelly, I’m gonna let you walk through that. And I want everyone to know. And everyone who’s been listening always knows. I say it’s a small world and you can always get to somebody when you need to get to him. People who tell me that you can’t get to someone is just not true. We’re not that far off. You could connections and Kelly and I met actually, through my mom, of all things, I let her tell that story. So, Kelly, again, thanks for being on. And today we’re gonna talk about stress response and storytelling. Just two of the nine things that we covered over those nine days.
Brandon:
Right, So thanks again and yes, going back to what you’re saying it does feel like we live in the Kevin Bacon world of six degrees of separation where it is true. Brandon’s mother and I went to Yale Divinity School together. I won’t mention how long ago, but is fascinating when you sit across somebody and have lunch in the cafeteria and then poof, fast forward and here we are having a different kind of conversation a generation differently. And yes, you know, it was really a fantastic thing that I think we did back in March and April. We we wanted to do something for the curb it when Kobe was really blooming and he took nine modules, which you can teach them separately. Or you can teach them in tandem with one another, which is what we did and we just built upon, which was a lot of fun. We had great conversations, and as we were thinking about the podcast, we thought, Let’s take two of the ones that that would be most applicable for what’s going on in today’s world and then when I also love about them. When you think about stress and the stories that we tell ourselves that these are a timeless, we can thank our ancestors for both of them. So even if you listen to this podcast and say year, this would still be really appropriate material for sure.
Kelly:
So I just wanted to touch Kelly on those nine things that we went through because I was as you were talking. Looking at that, we started out on day one with the status quo in the hero’s journey. We did stress, which we’re going to talk about today. We did peak productivity, which people won’t want to miss in the course for sure, because that was a great module between gremlins, fear and RG the master storyteller, Which would you talk a little bit about today with us, the nuts and the ants. And I’m not going to tell you what that is our cause. You’ll have to get course. Figure that out. The types of ants. What else did we do? We did habits Everybody wants to understand about habits. You and I talked at length with a ton of research.
Brandon:
Maybe Maybe that is its own.
Brandon:
I think so in the future and then surfing the overwhelming we did a bunch of exercises and talked about how to manage that.
Kelly:
And today is gonna be exciting because you are, I hope going to give us a little exercise at the end that people can do to manage stress and the stories they tell themselves, right?
Brandon:
Absolutely. We’re gonna give everyone not just a little practice that you can use when you need to cool the steam whistle or when you’re noticing things were just getting a little heavy in life. But we’re also gonna give a worksheet to So folks who want to take it to the next step you’ll get a worksheet that will drive you towards some really good questions that will, hopefully giving you some new insights as well, for sure.
Kelly:
And we have that and tune in to the end, and we will give you the URL where you can download that worksheet to this. So, Kelly, with that, where do you want to start today with this?
Brandon:
I know we’re gonna cover stress and the story we tell ourselves.
Kelly:
And I always say that I always go back and then I’ll hand it over to you that my mom I always remember sitting in my bedroom on the farm that we grew up listening to vinyl records and my mom coming in and saying, You know, you really shouldn’t be listening, that you got to be really careful about what you listen to, because it’s the story that you tell over and over in your head and and I think his kids were always like, Yeah, Okay, Mom, I get it.
Brandon:
And then you go back to listen. Ozzie Osborne. Crazy train and then three years forward or rush lime layer or whatever it is, right? And then or a C d. C. And 30 years forward, you come back and you realize to use man. Wow, Those lyrics were pretty heavy. I was probably telling myself so interesting things that might have been ahead of my time. So the story you tell yourself has just enormous impact on your daily life and where you’re going in life. So I’m excited here more about that today.
Brandon:
Yeah, I’m really excited to. And I think where I’d like to start is just that being human. You and I have talked about this. I think being human can be many things, but being human doesn’t have to be a hard as we make it. And a lot of that depends on where you grow up. How you your experiences in the world, what the world gives you what you do with it. I’ve been talking to my family a lot lately. Just talking about where they came from out of the Ohio River Valley and some of the obstacles that they had to go through to get to the places where they are today.
Kelly:
And then you think about man like we have been around on this planet as humans for a very, very, very long time. And we can thank our ancestors, as I mentioned earlier were our stress responses that we have today. We’re not fighting Sabretooth. Tigers were fighting traffic, were fighting just saying that comer away that we don’t know it necessarily what someone intends, what the motives are, and we don’t like a vacuum, so we often will fill the vacuum with the story that we create. The problem with that is that not all stories we tell ourselves are true, and not all stories that we have been telling ourselves are actually appropriate for where we are today in reliance on actually the future that we want to build. And then when you layer stressed into all of this, stress and stories go hand in hand. I think Hollywood directors have figured this one out. You know, they give me big explosions and get your heart rate going and then there’s like this narrative that goes to the movies.
Kelly:
My point is that human beings, we tell stories all day long. We live in a society that drives and lives off of stories so you can escape. Stress can escape stories, can estate what goes inside of you and how the external world is impacted me. So what we really want to do is spend some times a day digging into What is this symbiotic relationship between the two, And how do you ensure that you remain in the driver’s seat of your own life and you don’t let these things hijack you?
Kelly:
So yeah, I wanna I definitely want to go and start about that and I concert speaking out about stress. I do when a caveat it and say that I am not a neuroscientist. But I have been in the field of studying stress and stress response for more than a decade and have been going through my own personal experiences.
Kelly:
I think one saying that I have found really remarkable about going to covet going through everything else. The social unrest that’s happening now is that I think it’s very fair to say, Brandon, that all of us. No matter where you sit in this country or world, you are experiencing a heightened stress response. So whatever our normal waas whatever that is for you, you want to ratchet up the volume on that Because all the world is struggling with this and you can’t not struggle along with it.
Kelly:
You can help yourself in it, but we just want acknowledge that everyone’s heightened. So I say this because when I’m talking to my friends and family and they’re already high end and the people they’re engaged with our heightened, there’s just like I don’t understand.
Kelly:
I don’t understand what this person is doing that I will often say, Yeah, they probably don’t either, because they’re reacting to the world. They’re not thinking about it because the stress response is activated.
Kelly:
Yeah, And I think what I’ve realized is that I feel like I’ve got always I’m pretty strong and have this armor.
Brandon:
But when I got on the scale, I realized that I had gained £4 that’s really not like me, and it’s very clear that dress will come out in multiple different ways. The good news is not too hard to get off a man to do that. But the fact is is that people are on heightened response. Some people don’t realize that Oren’s Nile and I think we need to take that into account when we interact with people because it only takes if it took a small Bic lighter flame toe light someone off.
Brandon:
Now all it takes is a spark and right. And as soon as you do that, be prepared cause all hellfires coming, right?
Brandon:
Yes, exactly. So when you are dealing with a more reactive or people are moving into more reaction than contemplation or even with selection, I just got a lot that’s going on and you don’t always have Teoh. You can let me put it this way when somebody is hot, they’re not gonna You’re not gonna be a ableto have a logical, rational conversation. The best thing to do is to be the most relaxed person in the room and to listen until the person starts to calm themselves down.
Kelly:
I mean, some words that we might use around this would be like, Oh, that person’s really triggered or I got triggered or hot about this or whatever it is and then you just want to start to just let them calm down. I mean, I was trying to some friends and they said, you know, my wife came home and said, I’m retiring early. That’s it. I had enough of this and he went into a conversation about like, Well, let’s talk about your retirement portfolio and like, No, it’s not gonna work. You want to get down to the bottom of What? Is this person reacting to? What’s upsetting them on listening? And then as you listen, you concertante, they’ll naturally start to calm down. And then from there you will be able to have more progress. And that’s also true with ourselves. So when we’re feeling hot, we want to send that email. We want to try Mach on Facebook or Instagram. We want to write the email, just pause and calm, and then try from that place where there’s a little bit more space to make the decision and to help us think about this. I just want to run through a couple of things around stress at that. So case and highlight Yeah, I was hoping we could go back.
Kelly:
Teoh the ingredients and and talk about stress and chronic stress and get all of that.
Brandon:
So for those who are listening, when you think about stress, the number one thing when you consider is that stresses subject. So what’s gonna stress me out? Me, Not stress Brandon out. It may not even stress in that. And the other thing to note here is that not all stress is bad. Kelly McGonigal is a researcher at Stanford University, has fantastic books, and Ted talks about this. It’s really what you think about stresses how it will inform your reaction to stress. So if you think hey, stress is gonna bring out the best in the I do my best work under stressed or under pressure, that’s probably going to be true for you. If you say stress is gonna kill me, you are probably going to start to move more in that direction because again, that mind body relationship is extraordinary.
Kelly:
So for people thinking about stress a couple ways to break this, don’t think you’ve got two types. You’ve got acute stress and chronic stress. Acute stresses that kind that you can use where your body starts to give you that adrenaline a little bit of that. Cortisol stress hormones to give you the energy you need when you need it the most. So, for example, before this podcast, I could feel like wound. There’s that hit in the stomach. I’m a little sweating a little bit. My mind is racing. That tells me those in my physical sensation saying, Ding ding stresses acted in Cali. Your body is trying to give you the energy you need to do. Written dio.
Kelly:
On the other hand, you’ve got If you think about a stress access, on the other side of it is the chronic sjust, and that’s the stress that is not helpful. This is the stress where you have been in a compounded reaction, a relationship to something for a year or more, where you’re not getting sleep.
Kelly:
They’re not taking care of yourself. Your body can no longer the adrenaline and cortisol that is giving you is no longer enough. You start to see people in certain communities where they’re like man there, Eminem’s and Espresso. It repairs that working for me. I got to take something a little bit stronger. I’m gonna move to the Red Bull on then when you try to sleep at night. Your body can’t calm down. So maybe l takes an alcohol there and then I start toe get more irritable and I start to kind of go down.
Kelly:
So again, two things acute and crime. You just keep those in in your head and the number two is going to be important when you think about stress, because another way you can think about stresses that you have a fast brain on a slow brain and what I mean by that is when you look at a picture of the brain, you’ve got your brain stem, which is them closer to your neck. That is the oldest part of your brain, as we call it the reptilian brain. This is a part of you with a little gland, and they’re called the and Magdala. I think of that as my predecessors. Like the eye of salon. It’s like combing the whole environment, looking for a stress when it notices. Ah ha! That thing over there is stressful. It’s gonna give me again that adrenaline and cortisol to activate me to heighten my ability and you’ll see that people will their bodies will be prime their eyes will diary. They’re gonna be prime toe Act to move on the other hand, the slow brain.
Kelly:
So when you think about the brain growing over time and again, we’re talking about hundreds of thousands of years.
Kelly:
The gray matter that you’ll see the squiggly parts that is the part. Especially this area right here on your forehead. Priest. Mental quartets. This is the part of you that, like, so have a think about things. This is where we can empathize within the human being. This is where I have language. I can communicate to somebody. This is where I can make an ethical decision. This is the part that likes to have a think. So you’ve got the part of you that likes to be the gun slinger, and then you got the other part of you.
Kelly:
Does this space between those two, the more space you can give yourself, the more you can do things to help yourself to not fall into reaction. So I’ll give an example.
Kelly:
Years ago I was driving down the street. There is a pedestrian walkway, the car in front of me. Pause. I pause behind that car and the guy behind me who had been texting, just creamed right into the back of my car. So on that person and rush hour, you know, over on the side of the road, all the cars are like cocking, and I’m trembling. I’m standing there and on the whole body is shaking and the cop comes and they’re like, Honey, what’s your name?
Kelly:
And I can’t even say my name. I can hear it in my brain, but I cannot communicate it.
Kelly:
And I know it’s because in that moment I’m so full of adrenaline. I’m so full of the stress hormones, I it shuts my thinking brain off line totally, and you’ll notice this if you’ve ever gotten triggered or gotten hot, where you’ll just slay.
Kelly:
I don’t even know what to say any more like your your language goats. And this is where, in the moment you’ll do things that you think are a good idea. Like writing the email were making the angry phone call, and then afterward, when you had to think about it, you like. I shouldn’t have done that foot in mouth.
Kelly:
Please let me not do that again. That did not go well, so that’s you want to think again like acute and chronic. And then I’ve got these two brains fast and slow along with the number two.
Kelly:
Another way to think about this is you’ve got to systems of the body. You’ve got the sympathetic nervous system which revs you up and you’ve got the parasympathetic nervous system that calls a job.
Kelly:
So what I love about the body, Brandon is your body gives you both systems, which I think is extraordinary. It’s a complete you are a complete human being. You’ve got both. The problem in modern society is a lot more of us living simple, but we’re constantly triggered inactivated and don’t get a chance to calm down and when you’ll notice this.
Kelly:
So when we think about the parasympathetic nervous system, there’s a lot of research out there on the vagus nerve.
Kelly:
There’s also things that you can do. This is where if you are hugging someone that you love for 20 seconds or more, if you’re petting an animal, if you’re doing something that you love like out nature, you wonder that helps to activate inside your body.
Kelly:
Oxycodone actually, toasted starter chitosan not actually caught and oh my God, exit cotton don’t do that. Actually, Tosa, that’s your pedal for look.
Kelly:
So that is gonna allow your body When? When that starts to flow through your body, your body is like a no saber toothed tiger. No traffic. I can rest. I can call myself. Don’t. I can kill.
Kelly:
And what we want to do when we think about stress is we want to build enough space between a sympathetic response, the reaction and then the ability to calm yourself down. We want to swing out and gain more of that Paris and that that it so that we live in more bounce like and that’s really good way.
Kelly:
So two types, acute and chronic. You’ve got two brains, your fast and slow and two systems and sympathetic in the parents. So if you even just keep remembering those couple of things that’s going to help you so those were the technical things.
Kelly:
There’s also techniques to while you understand it, and you can rationalize it. There’s some techniques to actually manage it now. I was going back. Actually, we talked about nuts. Do you want to talk about San? Some notes here.
Brandon:
I would love to talk about nuts I know we said we were gonna give it to him, but I want to give it seven. So for everyone out there who’s listening a really good weight, think about stress. And to even haven’t think is to whether or not you’re experiencing it is to remember the acronym nuts and U. T s new, uncertain threat to identity and sense of control.
Kelly:
And I’m gonna break each one down. So when you have one of these four things, or all of them, your stress responses on, it’s anything that’s new, that’s the 1st 1 and is new.
Kelly:
Anything that’s new, anything you’ve never seen before, anything you’ve not yet had experience of anything were You often feel this. I think all of us are probably feeling it in Corona virus. This is a new thing for anybody who’s been on this planet.
Kelly:
We just don’t know what we’re dealing with, and that’s really activating.
Kelly:
You’ll find this option will happen when people get a new job. We’ll talk about the learning curve. This is a new thing. I’m excited by the most nervous about this can do it. The U is uncertain again. It’s anything that I just don’t know how I feel about this yet. I’m not sure I don’t have all the information yet. I don’t know what the outcome is going to be. This a lot ambiguity. I don’t like ambiguity. I want to be rooted and grounded and Cem Mil stuff uncertain.
Kelly:
So here this is new and uncertain. Another thing that pops up is the threat to identity. That’s the T threat to identity. Anything where you feel like knew how you see yourself in the world is being questioned or challenged. Still, for example, people who have been a long time expert in something and then they begin to retire, and now they have a new identity in retirement. They’re no longer how they saw themselves. So this is threatening. Who am I now? What am I know? Threat to identity. Opt in will happen. Any time. There’s a life transition, you are now single, and now you’re married, you’re married, and now you’re divorced. You’re in a new relationship. You are in a new job change. You have to move to another part of the country. There’s new people around you, anything in which you feel there’s a threat to how you see yourself and then the s, which I think is really interesting, is a sense of control.
Kelly:
So anything in which I don’t feel like I have control over it where my control has been taken away.
Kelly:
We see this a lot with, for example, the krona virus is happening right now because the waves we used to occupy any anxiety or tension. Maybe now we can’t go do that thing. You can’t see our friends. We can’t go outside and play tenants. We can’t. We’ve exhausted what Netflix had. What do I do with myself now? So that sense of control And if you are going through it and experience like a pandemic where we’ve got all the stuff happening at once on lots of layers, it’s just gonna just again turn up volume all the way. So not says good new, uncertain threat to identity and sense of control. You’ve got one of those things your stress response is probably on. Now. If it’s on and you’re like, you know what? This is not a good moment for me to be on the way. You can hack yourself or to bring that pair of sympathetic in is you want to create space because often with strengths are stories will start to explode out of her mind.
Kelly:
Because where we don’t know what this is, we’re in a vacuum. So we’re gonna fill it with things that we generated again. It may be shooting on a trip, so the way you will want to do this you even just took a deep breath before you responded.
Kelly:
You’re doing yourself a huge favor. If you decided to just grieve for about 62 9 seconds, you’re gonna calm yourself down even more. One of the things that we know is that if you’re moving from a place of reactivity to a place of calm, it can take your body about 60 to 90 seconds or more to get the message. So, for example, if I’m in traffic, some guy cuts Nia, I’m noticing my stress response on, but I’ve really gotta pay attention cause it’s also raining.
Kelly:
I can’t I can’t just react to this guy and, you know, and saved to react to this guy. I might regret forget reacting to this guy, so I will just calm myself down. Another thing you can do through the breathing as you can. Also again, don’t do the second driving, but if you’re not driving in your home, you can literally take your hands together. Rub them as if it were a cold day and then put the heat of your hand on your heart on your tea on your leg. It’s a signal to your body. Hey, lady, we are not in stress. Response to me are common. The Jets were cool and things.
Kelly:
There’s no saber toothed tiger. You’re OK. You got this.
Kelly:
And I think one of the things that is key, that is people listening are saying this is all great, But this is so much, How am I actually going to do that?
Brandon:
I would offer and we talked about this.
Brandon:
Kelly, you and I is the first thing that will decrease your stress.
Brandon:
I wouldn’t suggest that it’s going to take it to zero, because, as you said, it’s going to take some time.
Brandon:
But it’s just recognising it like OK, I am. I am stressed because then you gain this sense of power over something and you take the uncertainty or the feeling that you don’t have power, right?
Brandon:
At some level, you don’t have that control because your body’s recently released adrenaline, which is designed for something to do something which you probably feel like you want to run O r hide. But just recognizing it will change your relationship with that stress. If you can just remind yourself before that would be, Would you agree, Calleigh? Sort of Step one is just recognizing it, because once you recognize it and you get a grip on recognizing it, then you could do something with it. But if you can’t recognize it and you can’t say I am under stress right now, it will spiral out and you won’t be able to do any techniques or any exercises.
Brandon:
Yeah, absolutely, Brandon, you’re right on it.
Brandon:
We all have a different way. We like to respond to stress. Some of us are fighters. Love us. Me and some of us just freeze. You don’t know what we’re doing, so just stay in place to do nothing.
Kelly:
What you’re talking about is struck is self awareness. I’m trying Teoh, wake up in this moment and not let my reactive self taking over. I’m trying to stay conscious, awake, aware of everything that’s going on and I want to make a smart choice in this moment and I want to have a think about it, so yeah, absolutely.
Kelly:
Step one is always self awareness. The trouble is, and I think this is something we don’t really talk very much about in society we think it’s going to come from our heads. That’s not necessarily true. The first reaction we will often have distresses lives in the body. So what, you want to have a think about where this is a little baby practice people can do at home is OK, Let me look at my little cells. Just check in with myself once my style and my a fighter directly or a do like freeze. And you can even just look at the timeline of your life and you’re gonna see and could even ask people around you. Hey, what do I do with this? The thing you think Dio And then once you know your style, you wanted them pay attention to what you’re physical sensations are in your body. Where do you feel the first time of it off this body? Is it that you notice that your breath is quickening? You’re starting to breathe a lot faster. Isn’t that your heart is racing? Is it that I’ve got a pit in my stomach? Is it that I start to make little fists? Is it that my mind is racing? I’m already anticipating and problem solving. I’m no longer in president moved why we would want to do this.
Kelly:
And I think this is important work to dio on. I would encourage all people that to do this one because I think it the benefits are just so exponential.
Kelly:
When I stay close to myself and I stayed close to those physical sensations, I don’t disconnect from myself. I don’t just go here. I’m with all of whom. And as I stay with all of me in the present moment, I can handle no matter what is going on with other people, I am no longer not aware of the situation where other people’s energies or emotions or situations can literally in fact, me.
Kelly:
And I am now behaving in a way that maybe I would have launched for that isn’t authentic to me or like afterward, I might have a regret about I can stay in myself because I am going to work with me.
Kelly:
And then as I am more full with myself, I can now be with people who are around me.
Kelly:
It doesn’t matter if they’re a Category five hurricane, I can still be calm with them and I can remain connected with them cause I’m connected to myself.
Kelly:
The problem with reactivity.
Kelly:
And this is why I think a lot of people, if you look at discourse, if you look at things, we’re not talking with each other. We’re just food. We’re reacting were like just missiles flying past each other.
Kelly:
And it feels really frustrating. It feels like we just go in cycles and circles with people. The spell never gets broken because we’re not even present to ourselves. So how the hacking you re present to another human being, you just can’t.
Kelly:
So again, take the breath, figure out where if this is a map, where do I Where are my centers?
Kelly:
It’s going to be different for everybody. Everybody. And then once you know that in the next moment you get sugared and you’ve got your spear, son, your timing off like Lupin stomach.
Kelly:
That’s my signal. That tells me. Okay, let’s just take a breath Now, Before this escalates, let me just greed.
Kelly:
Maybe I take a couple of rounds of breath and then from there I’m gonna see how I want to step into this and what I might want to say or what I might want to dio.
Kelly:
But when we don’t, when we disconnect from ourselves, we can be complicity.
Kelly:
Two things we can do, things that were just like afterwards. And when you wake up, what the heck was thinking?
Kelly:
What wasn’t doing?
Kelly:
But I think you have to practice this right, the trigger that stress, whatever you feel in your body, you have to match with a physical. I mean, a mental thought that says I’m under stress like that would be step one and people just practice that and it took me a long time. And you you’re never gonna be perfect. But one of the things that I have triggered is when I opened the Cabinet, where we keep the pretzels and the cookies and everything, and what I have triggered is is that when I touched that and open that door, that’s a physical thing that I’m doing.
Brandon:
But I’ve matched that with the mental thought that says, Am I eating because I’m hungry? Where am I eating? Because I want to control something and I’ve matched that, which at that moment now has given me control the best that I could control it right of at least asking the question and has turned into a rational thing than an emotional thing.
Brandon:
And I think that’s how I’ve done it. I noticed where I’m breathing from right? So if I’m breathing in the upper chest, I instantly I’ve matched it to a thought that says, There’s some something’s going on, What is it?
Brandon:
And at that point, I’m having that conversation.
Brandon:
I remember you know, I was thinking about when you were talking about nuts, what this whole surfing thing that I started doing, which still it was supposed to be totally fun. And it is on, but has been this totally insanely stressful thing for me, and it’s been interesting to figure out, mainly because I love putting myself in situations that I’m actually take, like I’m the new person, right? I’m learning from from zero, but I got I was going through. A Zai was listening to you. One is, it’s new. I had never seen it before. So when you see waves recently, I went out and some big surf. You know, if you see an eight foot nine foot wave and you haven’t seen that before and it’s about the crash on you, it creates some stress. I would suggest you e yeah, I know. I am completely uncertain exactly what that feeling had. It will be because, to be honest, I don’t maybe as a kid and I was rafting, but we’re using, like a mad. But I don’t remember what it’s like to have an eight foot or nine foot wave crashed on me. And what happened? There’s a threat that I have just a threat, right? Like it could hurt me. It could threw me against the ground. There’s sharks in these waters, and then the sense of control, which is basically which is part of the fun of surfing in many ways is really you only can control you.
Brandon:
Ultimately, that’s really all you can control. So as I when you said, Oh, if you have one of these, I can remember like, yeah, a week ago I had all of these and then was in this what I would say downward spiral, which is when I was getting when I basically had had enough, mainly because I was just so tired physically from getting caught in sets and I did catch them ways was just totally fun. But then, as I’m as I’m coming toward shore, there’s his little seal and he’s swimming right next to me.
Brandon:
I mean, right to my left, Aiken Tut. I can if I want to touch him. I could touch it right if he let me.
Brandon:
But he’s right there. And then I went into a total state of panic and a state of panic is about four weeks ago we had a guy die just south of where I was surfing from a from a shark attack, and usually and then I’m a fisherman.
Brandon:
As you know, most people know so like, where a fish there, right near shore in general.
Brandon:
And what are they targeting?
Brandon:
Tucking him? Pray that our little seals and I just instantly went off. I was like, Oh, my God, get away from me and and I’m going as fast as I can. And then I’m realizing. And so it Luckily whatever habit I’ve created triggered which is Hey, look, you’re panicking.
Brandon:
You’re going to make more splash in the water, which is actually, if there, if there is a shark around which the likelihood is more so where we serve here than other places, but still low, right?
Brandon:
I mean, shark attacks there. There are shark attacks, but they’re not a lot of shark attacks in it. And to be honest, you really can’t be thinking if you’re going to surf in California, you can’t think about sharks. I mean, you need to be aware of them, but you can’t panic at moment. I was like, OK, you’re panicking. And and then it started to allow me to get control. It did not happen, you know, in 20 seconds, it took a minute. But then I was like, Look, you’re in the water, You’re gonna have to get the short some point, you’re gonna have to paddle.
Brandon:
Paddling faster and under control is probably a better way. It doesn’t mean that I was like, Hey, seal like, get away from me, Right, Right.
Brandon:
But I think you you know, I’m just using this as an example for the listeners out there to say there’s these examples that you can go through the train yourself to say OK, is it upper breathing? Is it when you actually touch the cabinet because you’re eating for stress? Is it Is it Ah, word that you use when you talk to your partner, your spouse or whatever that is or your kids, And use that as the trigger to get aware, to practice, to gain awareness. And then once you’ve mastered that, start to get control.
Brandon:
Exactly. So one of the things that I dio is and again, Brandon, you’re absolutely right. We did. OK, people, as you’re listening to this, this is practice. Every day like this is hard to train yourself because when you were under stressed, what do you do? You go back to old behavior that makes you feel comfortable. So you’re ready fighting against lots of reps on something else. What we’re talking about is building a new exercise portfolio for yourself, where every time you catch yourself, you’re doing like a baby bicep rep. You are putting the reps in, and the more reps you get in and we know if you’re gonna master anything, it’s what, 10,000 hours. So every time you do this? Yes. Put your hands in the air because you have. You have now woken up in this moment and that’s gonna help you when I was going through my own. I’ve had multiple examples for this because every day is a new day. We get to practice. I was thinking about PB A. That’s what I say to myself. I noticed pitting the summit. I instantly say P b A. That’s my acronym for Pause before action. Just pots. Don’t do anything until you get it under control. And then from that place, respond.
Kelly:
I will tell you, if you had known me when I was playing tennis is a high school student or in martial arts, I could be very competitive. I’ve used is to help myself kind of fall more into the Zen flow of things over time. That’s probably a good thing. But like you, you know, I remember a buddy of mine from high school. We decided to be wanted to do the back country off the grid and Glacier National Park. He’s like, you want to do this? I’m like, yes, and then I was like, Oh, no, I have never chance in my fuckin life. Like, what the heck am I doing? Think again, Kelly. But then I was like, No, I’m gonna do it. And, you know, first day sought to grizzly bear. I don’t think I slept very well. But every day it was like, This is my stress response, and all I can do is put one foot in front of the other or back up slowly, like very you know, if you see the bear and then you have to learn along the way, and I really go back every day is gonna be your practice partner will be people. There will be things that will be the news. There will be something your kids and you’ll note, and then you’re just gonna have lots of practice partners. So I was working with a client last week who was tracking about some co workers and just struggle back and forth, and she was calling them like those people.
Kelly:
Yeah, those people. So when you call them those people, you already collapsing a lot of potential. And if you look at them instead and said, you know what? My co workers were having some disagreements that are practice partners. It changes the whole dynamic, even though the tendency might be like on those people right on.
Kelly:
And I think that’s a Segway into the storytelling in your head.
Brandon:
Great. Right.
Kelly:
So that story that that your client just said to them changes it said that it could have gone.
Brandon:
If you tell that story yourself that those people, then you’re going down a different road than you are with my co workers.
Brandon:
And and these I am part of the host people.
Brandon:
Yes.
Kelly:
So what I love about this is that this is a lot harder than you might think because first of all, you want to recognize that you are a story machine. You are a master storyteller because then you have been practicing your entire life. You have been fed stories and lives stories and tell stories in think stories. And not all of them are true.
Kelly:
And some of them may not even be yours. By the way, they might be parents stories. They might be the concentric circles. We live in a race society, gender, religion, whatever country, and those are all like loud speakers telling you what you can and can’t be so we’re already living in constructs of stories. It’s kind of like new and nature. It’s, you know, what’s the story that I need to define for myself?
Kelly:
Part of what we need to decide is what are the stories that are true for us? How do we get rid of the story? Is that no longer work for us and then are active? And then how do we consider what are the stories were actually telling? So, for example, Brennan, when you were talking earlier about your surfing story about threat to identity, If I put myself on the surfboard and I’m looking at the way and I’m looking at Basile and I’m thinking, I don’t want to be a chicken nugget here for the shirts, I’m going to start to think who the heck was? I think that I could stir Ah, these people around me might be thinking right. She’s in you being like, What the heck is she doing? I’m already making up stories about what is possible for my own potential to become a surfer and what I think other people are thinking about me and I might even give up surfing because I decide shoot I’m clearly can’t do this. I’m out. I’m taking herself out.
Kelly:
We do this all the time. We’ll see somebody give us that stink eye. What we think is a state guy, will. We’ll see Somebody react in a way, and we think it’s about us and we’ll say, Oh, that person just really doesn’t like me or ever really upset that person or wow, I just think I blew.
Kelly:
That will make up stories. The only way we know for sure this will take a lot of courage is if we actually approach the person and say, Hey, the story I was making up is that I really upsetting somehow by doing X y z Was that true for you?
Kelly:
And the person might be like, Oh, God, I’m so glad you came to me about this. No, I don’t know what your tiny about. I was just thinking about this stuff in their life. Were other people will be like, You know what? I’m so glad you came to me because, yes, that’s actually true. And I’m glad you brought that up. And now I want to talk to you about it.
Kelly:
The thing when you think about stories. It’s a lot like stress. You want to think about what types of stories you tell yourself. Are these positive growth expanding stories or are you collapsing them down into like you can’t do anything. You’re no good, You don’t matter. Why even try it? Center center center worry.
Kelly:
So are they limiting or are they grow like, Yes, you’ve got this. You can do this. Go out and sweat. You’ve got it. I mean, what are those stories? And then we want to hold that story, hopefully positive inside of us, so that when other people come, they can either ratchet up your story or start to chip away at your story. So you want to maintain yourself and it look ideally, Brandon, what you want to get to this is the practice for all of us is you want to be so sure about who you are, what you represent, what you’re about, that no matter anything that comes your way, it’s not gonna bother you because, you know, the truth is I just and that’s really difficult.
Kelly:
I don’t know.
Kelly:
That’s like, That’s like the summit, right?
Kelly:
Yeah, that’s the simple.
Kelly:
That’s the new plateau, right?
Brandon:
Yeah, yeah.
Kelly:
I mean, I was just listening.
Kelly:
Teoh Charlie at a young woman who’s all over tic tac. She’s got, like, 60 million plus followers. She’s a She just turned 16 years old, and she’s an incredible social influencer.
Kelly:
But in a recent interview, she talked about how there’s a lot of people out there who give her a lot of hate, and she has to work so much harder to rest inside herself that she knows who she is in, which is about it was really hard is that when you’re a teenager, you’re still burying it out. You don’t have the wisdom of a lot of like experience yet, so you’re so much more vulnerable and prone. Teoh the sensitivity of what other people say. And that’s true for all of us because grew up maybe with people saying things and behaving in ways that set up a story for us that we either want to change or we want to get rid of or we wanna shake ship.
Kelly:
So the stories here’s Here’s the connection between stories and stress that so I’ve been peeking out about stories. Hopefully, everyone at home is nodding along like that. So I know what you’re talking about, Kelly.
Kelly:
And when you tell yourself a story like I’m out there next to the seal, I don’t want to be a chicken McNugget but sharks. Maybe I shouldn’t be serving. I’m already shooting on myself. I’m already telling myself maybe, I don’t know, skills to do this. What? I was thinking that it is left. That’s where I want to, cause because the body is like, Yeah, Brandon. Yeah, Kelly, That’s right. And your body starts to give you the stress hormones to match your story that you’re telling yourself.
Kelly:
So if you’re telling yourself a story that’s revving up your stress response, your body is like high five. Yes, I agree. Yes, they agree. And then we we feed off of each other’s. The story feeds off the extra extra energy. The energy is like, Yes, somebody wants my energy. I’m gonna produce more of it. So we’re caught in this really that cycle.
Kelly:
If I start to tell myself a story about that’s growth Hey, you’ve got this. You’re gonna figure it out. You haven’t figured it out yet yet is a wonderful girl. Just add that on the anything you’re saying to yourself because it shows that you can grow. Your body starts to calm down because it’s not activated such So that’s why stress and stories always go along together. Wanna be mindful about the stories you’re telling yourself and the stories you’re ingesting? Is this junk food or is this like, nourishing good stuff for you? And what’s the junk food or fake news that I might be telling myself about myself? I want to course correct that and really take a look at like, Hey, I’ve been telling the same stories in, like, 1985.
Kelly:
Is this the best story I can tell this? It Is this the limit of my imagination or wow I’ve had for almost 43 years of life? What are all the amazing stories that I have? And maybe I’m gonna pull a new one out of the books of my life and retire the story that I have been talking for a long time?
Kelly:
And I think I’d suggest that there is this, as you were talking, I was thinking about There’s a story that you’ve been telling yourself maybe since 1985 or are, however, far back that goes, and one of the things when I wind or luckily, over the years through reps, I’ve gotten way better, so it really doesn’t affect me as much.
Brandon:
But one of the phrases that I use is that’s not like me.
Brandon:
And as soon as you use that it changes everything, it will change that story, right, and you’ll, you know, you’ll find yourself telling a story.
Brandon:
Well, whatever the story is, I wasn’t good at that.
Brandon:
I’m not good at that.
Brandon:
I’ve always been I you know this all I’ve always been. But if you can end it with that’s not like me, that’s not who I am today than all the sun. It separates these old stories. And then there’s this storytelling that you do want to tell yourself, right? If your goal is to ride a century on a bike 100 miles, then the story you want to tell yourself is on the type of person who can ride 100 miles and basically now and we won’t.
Brandon:
You and I keep going on all day today, but because that elite individualization techniques that you do tell you the story that you want to live or that you want to be, so that that’s pulling you into that story, if you will. And then there’s this balance that you have to dio, which is a lot of life’s disappointments I’ve found, are not really a result of the actual situation, nor the people.
Brandon:
Most of that is expectations that have been built by a story and which leads to disappointment. And you know what we’re talking about here at face value? Probably somebody jumps in the podcast and, like, M and grab a few techniques. That stuff is easy. There’s a few things that we’ve offered today so far, and some things that you will hear a the end when we get there, offer some techniques that you can use to Bridget to make some really fast, easy progress, right recognition and breathing things like that. But as you get better and you start to master this, you start to realize that there’s this balance and how important it is to understand the stories that you do tell yourself.
Brandon:
Because they ault, in fact, not only tell yourself but the story that you interpret about riel world reality because you can interpret this situation completely different, then it actually WAAS, which leads to expectations, which could lead to disappointment.
Brandon:
So I think there’s these. Ah, and that’s our right and in many ways, you You do even want a coach in many ways, because ultimately, what you will develop for yourself as you start to think about. If you’re willing to accept that you’re going to embark on the journey of starting to gain control of stress and gain control of these stories, step one is to gain is to recognize them and acknowledge them. But then you’re gonna really need to build a plan, right?
Brandon:
Right, You to build a plan.
Kelly:
And I would even say it’s not even about control. It’s about connections.
Kelly:
I really think I think that I mean, you can probably read into what you want with.
Kelly:
Yeah, One of the reasons.
Brandon:
Yeah, One of the reasons I love the word connection is because one of the things we have been talking about for all listeners at home please take this one away.
Kelly:
You want to connect with your stress, you want to connect with stories, you want to have a relationship.
Kelly:
You don’t want to push them away because they don’t go away to just get bigger. So it I can connect now. In the moment I feel it. I don’t have to let it grow into a tsunami. Wait, I can just kind of as it’s just lapping at my big toe. I can handle that. But if I don’t say, Hey, wait, a little ripple of water touching my big toe. Hey, how’s it going down there? Limit when they see what’s coming on? If I don’t do that, it’s just a tsunami, and I get just wipes me out. So when you can act remember, we’ve been talking about self awareness. The other thing. I want to make sure to mention its curiosity. Curiosity is your turn is gonna open up things.
Kelly:
It’s gonna help you connect because the words you’re gonna use here when you’re in dialogue with yourself and with others is well, what’s this about how how is really opening what is really opening? What good, open ended questions and you want to stay out of anything that’s inherently judging, Lucien. And that is why Why did you do that? Did you do that? Should you? You should be doing this and that’s all like Cheney and judging that shuts it all down. So you don’t want to do that to yourself, and you absolutely don’t want to do that because people believe he hated Did you do your homework? Oh, God. It sounds like there’s only one right answer here, and I better Abit. Thanks. Did you get the milk?
Kelly:
I forgot. Now I’m looking for the consequence of my forgetfulness.
Kelly:
But if I connect, then I can stay out of that. And bring a brown is a phenomenal work on this Dr Krystyna Also at a Texas doing great work and self compassion. Those input the sources for folks. But remember self awareness curiosity didn’t They’re going to be your friends. These are your allies on the journey.
Kelly:
Yeah. One of the things that we said in the nine days to turn yourself into a powerhouse was a quote by burn a brown that said something to Shemer corrodes the very part of us that believes we are capable of change. Right? And I think just saying that acknowledging that sort of allows you to connected a different way with those with those feelings.
Brandon:
Yeah, absolutely.
Brandon:
I mean, if I’m shaming myself that I do something.
Brandon:
And then I instantly shamed God. Why did you do it like that? Shouldn’t you should have done it differently. I in being the same thing to myself that I don’t like when people do that to me. So if there’s an outsider who says something it Kelly like, why did you do it like that?
Kelly:
And I now do that on top of what this other person is doing and I absorb all of it. And then I’m asking myself, I’m double shaming. I’m It’s I feel even worse on that. If you’re not careful, can seduce you in just a story. That’s like, Well, I’m just competent. Shouldn’t that stretched for this job? What the hell was I thinking? And you can really collects your life.
Kelly:
So I think one of the days and saying here is that if you can work with your stories, connect with them. If you can connect with their stress, you actually can. And we’ve been using the word powerhouse You your light can open up in some really extraordinary raise because you’re not gonna just follow blindly all this other noise.
Kelly:
So with that, Kelly We covered a lot of ground, probably given enough people stuff to work on for plenty of time.
Kelly:
But could you offer an exercise to our listeners that they could put the work just to get started, make some progress?
Kelly:
Yeah, I think the one that I love, it’s a two parter.
Brandon:
The first is you really want to just get a sense of your physical sensations?
Brandon:
No, Where is it for you? For me, it’s always the pitiless. In the first place I noticed when I noticed the pit in the stomach, or when I notice I’m getting hot, I just will take a deep breath.
Kelly:
I’ll breathe in if my nose is not cloud, I’ll breathing through my nose and I’ll bring it out by now on, I want to have my jaw.
Kelly:
I want this to be unhinged. I wanted toe let it go because we store a lot of stress in our jaw. Those of you who clench and grind at night, you know exactly what I’m talking about. So I’ll just take a breath like breathe in, breathe out. And if I have to do that a couple of times, I think we learned a lot of good stuff back in kindergarten, You know, Carrie, count to 10. Maybe I’m gonna breathe to 10. But I really want to calm until I no longer see Brett. Can I call my jets down? So just taking a deep breath is great.
Kelly:
For those of you at home, we all have different lung capacity. So a deep breath for me may not be the same for you might have, like Lance Armstrong lungs, and I just don’t. So you just want to take a breath, see if you can grieve from your belly. Like if you take a hand and put it right there underneath your rib cage of the bottom of your belly. And if you take it in breath, you breathe in and you notice that belly expands.
Kelly:
That’s great. That’s all you want to do. You just want to try to bring more of the breath through more of the lungs and done diaper. So that’s a sweet little practice. Take a breath. The 2nd 1 would be see if you could be the most relaxed person in every room of your house and every place to go and not take the hook off of other people’s struts.
Kelly:
Can you just stay calm and see if your calmness can expand out? That’s another good little practice, and you can do it by just choosing. That’s look at your phone and just breathing.
Kelly:
So those are two sweet little practices.
Kelly:
Yeah, yeah, and those air perfect.
Kelly:
I would just want to emphasize something you said, which is a lot of the times when people say Take a deep breath and you emphasize this.
Brandon:
You want to take the breath from your belly. You do not want to take that from your upper chest because your upper chest is going to be the fighter flight. And I think that that’s what people, If you take a deep breath and you take it from your upper chest, you’ve just you’ve just ignited the very thing you’re doing. So I just whatever the listeners to remember that, like Kelly said, that breath has to be from your belly and not from your upper chest.
Brandon:
If your breathing from your upper chest that is one of many signals that you are in a flight or flight and your body isn’t is releasing adrenaline, so that’s the first thing and the second thing on your be the most relaxed person. I think the thing that that really does is it creates a challenge. And when you create a challenge for yourself, you change the story of what’s actually going on, and that will change everything for you. And I think those air to great things that people can do. We are going to give a worksheet.
Brandon:
So in the Outro, I will put the girl in there because I actually don’t know what it will be right now. But we’ll give that to everyone. And Kelly, you and I are going to re record. We did this live session, as Kelly had said earlier in the program. We did it for free and we did nine days killing. I had not taught it together in that way. We both have taught every element of that individually in one case of the other. And in many cases like today, I don’t know how long we’ve gone, but probably over an hour on simply two of the nine aspects that we probably could go into each one.
Brandon:
Well, we did go into eat one of these for over at over an hour in most cases and probably get a get going. But we had That was really a great session. Every we had great feedback. People loved it. I was telling Kelly before we jumped on here today that I just got an email from one of the people who had gone through those nine days and said It is just extraordinary for him and it was at a perfect time in his life when he needed it and that he actually is going back to that. But you and I are going to re record that without a live audience to make a shorter version, if you will, for people, when we do offer the courses, not open right now. But we will open it down the line so that people could go through their arguably a little bit quicker without that. And we’ll give people the option of you and I doing the well.
Brandon:
I call it like my dad’s version of down and dirty. Just give me this stuff to Dio, then that any the community aspect. So we’re gonna do that. I don’t know. We actually had planned for that this week and and something’s got just on my plate that I couldn’t do it. But we’re gonna aim for that for the next week or two. And then once we get that edited, will probably open up registration for people who want to do that. I just want to say thanks so much, Kelly, for this. I think this is the timing of this, Obviously is Ah, what we’re going through with the Corona virus and all of these protests and, you know, the world is we?
Brandon:
When we woke up in January 1st 2020 we may have thought that we were gonna live in a world that may have been better than 2019 but looked somewhat the same.
Brandon:
And I think we woke up one day in March and realize that the world is going to be completely different forever.
Brandon:
Yeah. I mean, one of the things I take a lot of comfort in is that all of us are the products that survivors. So we’re some pretty resilient stock got into this point, and I think I just think it’s really important to just normalize the conversation and just say, Hey, yeah, this is really freaking tough out there and a lot of us are experiencing multiple things at once. Some of us are only experience in order to things.
Kelly:
So you if you’re struggling, I just want to say it’s normal. Embrace it. Being human is lots of things, and right now it just may be really freaking top. And hopefully after just this conversation, listening to a little bit more info about stories and your own stress response that might open up some doors and windows in your life like I know this about myself. I can take this outburst spin and test it out and see how it goes. And again, it’s really about connected because, remember, when stay connected to yourself, you can stay more connected to the people around you. Both those you know and don’t know. And I think that’s a really exciting future where neighbor, we could end up with a better world coming out of this. That’s my open, totally agree, and normally we end on three h.
Kelly:
P. T s. But the truth is, we drop so many H BT’s in this cast that I don’t want to overwhelm and create stress for everyone. I would point back to rewind and do the two exercises. Download the worksheet. That’s three right there. You got your breath exercise. You’ve got your be the most relax person in the room Challenge. You’re gonna have a worksheet. And those are the three HP teas. Kelly, thanks so much for coming on. Looking forward to re recording this, and, yeah, we’ll try to shoot for that next weekend. Maybe we’ll do another podcast if you and I get energy around it after we record the nine modules again.
Brandon:
Yeah, sounds good. Thank you, Greta. Ready for this conversation? Thanks, Everyone. Stay safe. Staying and strong out there. And, Brendan, good luck with your sickening.
Kelly:
Thanks. 10. Okay.
Kelly:
By. Well, how good was that?
Brandon:
That was awesome. Kelly, thank you so much for doing this episode. It was a ton of fun, and I think you and I could talk for hours. And I hope you as the listeners enjoy it.
Brandon:
If you did, please leave a review and tell me what you think.
Kelly:
And if you’d like to reach out and give me direct feedback, my email is be at Brandon.
Kelly:
BrandonCWhite.com
Kelly:
And don’t forget as a thank you for listening.
Brandon:
I’ve got a special offer for my bill to business success Secrets Snail Mail newsletter that has mind, body and business articles delivered to your snail mail box.
Brandon:
Yes, it’s old school, but it’s worth more than the Elektronik newsletters that you get all the time.
Brandon:
So check it out.
Brandon:
That’s for you. Thanks again. If you enjoyed it, leave a review hit. Subscribe until next episode.
Brandon:
I’m rooting for your success. And remember, you’re just one business plan away. We’ll see you later
Subscribe to the Build a Business with Brandon Podcast on your podcast player below?
