How to Reduce and Eliminate Feeling Overwhelmed with Kelly M. | Ep. 33 Mind Podcast
Summary
Kelly McGannon joins me and talks about feeling overwhelmed and some tips on how to reduce and eliminate the feeling.
Everyone feels overwhelmed from time to time. It’s especially common when starting a business or growing one.
However, overwhelm doesn’t discriminate. It can easily creep into your every day life and wreck havoc on your business, relationships and family life.
Listen in, learn how to recognize the signs and deal with it if it creeps into your life.
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Hello,
Brandon:
friends. Welcome to another episode of Build a business success Secrets.
Brandon:
I am your host, Brandon. See White. And today, Kelly McGahn in his back in the house.
Brandon:
And we’re talking about feeling overwhelmed and how to reduce and eliminate that overwhelming feeling that we all get.
Brandon:
And especially during these times when we’re faced with dealing with multiple things that we haven’t had come at us necessarily all at once for a really long time.
Brandon:
You’re gonna love this episode.
Brandon:
I’m not gonna waste another second.
Brandon:
Let’s get to it.
Brandon:
Hey, everyone, welcome to another episode of Build a business Success Secrets.
Brandon:
We’ve got Kelly back. How are you, Kelly?
Brandon:
Hey, everyone, I’m well, thanks, Brandon.
Kelly:
Yes. And today this is really a part two. We did a earlier podcast, and we’ve had ah, lot of people who were in the nine days to turn yourself into a powerhouse. Siri’s right us and lay like our podcast. So today we thought that it would be good to talk about cascading because of all of the uncertainty that I think sort of feels like Kelly. It piled up here not only in the world I mean entrepreneurs, entrepreneurs deal with uncertainty. So there’s a great topic for any entrepreneur out there or building a business or managing a business during this whole crazy times or any crazy times. But I think the outside world is also experiencing some uncertainty. And I think Kelly and I were talking before we started recording that. It is almost sorting.
Brandon:
Do really wear on people. What do you think?
Brandon:
Uh oh, absolutely. I think, you know, Look, anybody who’s listening, if you go back and listen to the previous podcast that we recorded on stress, it’s really fair to say that I think that the volume of stress for everybody is ratcheted up to, like 10 plus on that decibel scale. It’s just really, really high right now on how it manifest for you, how it’s gonna manifest for the people in your concentric circles of life, social circles, business circles, family circles, friends, etcetera. It’s gonna look a little different to everybody. So if you’re out there, if you find yourself nodding your head as I’m saying, all of this, you are in good company. Mhm and Brennan. I want to go back to something that you had just said. Just a few minutes ago about the entrepreneurial escape landscape. You know, it’s true entrepreneurs. They deal with this kind of uncertainty on a daily basis, as do many other people out there. I think people who work in the stock market finance people who work in an emergency room, people who work and just tight, fast paces. You’re gonna You never know what essentially you’re going to get. Some people thrive off of that. Some people are building their resilience reps in those environments.
Kelly:
Also, when we were speaking a couple months ago, you were talking about surfing and how surfing you just don’t know what’s in the water around you. I mean, no one wants to be a chicken McNugget Teoh, A great white shark. You have the seal around you for sure, for sure.
Kelly:
And we also have people like Laird Hamilton who thrive and some big waves.
Brandon:
I was just seeing it, and I think this Forbes magazine a couple weeks ago, the big, big waves that come off the coast of Portugal, Fantastic woman just recorded the biggest wave she had ever served. I think it was 80 ft plus. It’s pretty extraordinary, so some people like that just thrive off of those conditions. So what we want to talk about in today’s podcast is let’s talk about overwhelmed. Let’s talk about cascading and how we’re defining that one. And then what are some easy steps you could do? Because here’s why you want to get out ahead of it. If you don’t get out ahead of overwhelmed, it can really start to do some damage, and you start to erode your self confidence that can start to erode maybe how you see yourself, especially if the ways in which you had shown up in the world are radically disrupted. So, for example, if somebody out there is used to going into the office, that’s where they take a lot of their social energy, the professional identity. And suddenly now you’re working from home in an environment where your your family is like, Hey, buddy, I need you to get that dishwasher loaded like I don’t care what you’re doing on that computer like you’ve got a family here, too.
Kelly:
How you how you go into your next meeting may not be as confident as you had hoped. If you had a situation which or an environment that you could really control.
Kelly:
And that’s what we’re talking about. We’re talking about how the world is volatile on certain chaotic, and it’s all these things and more so when I’m talking about the word cascading, I’m really looking at it from a metaphorical perspective.
Kelly:
I love the ocean. I love standing on the beach on. I love looking at the waves rolling in and each wave, the more you look at them, they’re different sometimes every once in a while.
Kelly:
If you’re a surfer, a body surfer, you know that there’s gonna be a wave that’s going to take you to shore. It’s gonna be brilliant, and some of them are not going to get you anywhere. So cascading is the same thing that we do in the mind. It’s just when we look out and our environment, our story machines inside of our heads, they start to say, Oh, look at that wave. I know what that feels like because that reminds me about the time when this thing happened and oh, yeah, That reminds me about the time this thing happened on all of it. All of a sudden, you’re just in a tailspin. You’re just cascading way down.
Kelly:
I mean, how does that feel for you, Brandon? As you serve, I mean, does this like, resonate with you as well?
Kelly:
Yeah, I was just thinking when we were talking before we started recording, as released, the entrepreneurs and I think what’s happening in today’s even for people like layer and all these.
Brandon:
I mean, our governor, emergency people, all the people in the fires out here you talk about uncertainty like not knowing what are fire is going to go in an instant.
Brandon:
But I think what’s happens or where you begin to be tested that you need to be prepared is that even if you are operating at that level, it’s the compounding effect that you’re not that catches you off guard like even me.
Brandon:
I I was like, Oh, well, I’m on Entrepreneur.
Brandon:
I’ve been doing this for two decades. Plus, I’m like, whatever, it will be good. And then, months ago, I think we I mentioned it to you. I actually looked at the scale because I was like, I’m not gonna Nothing’s going to change. Well, something changed because my fitness certainly didn’t go down or my activity events, but my scale went up and I actually had to go back and look at that. And it it’s this thing that creeps up on you. And really, what I would say is it’s because it’s compounded and and when things compound, that’s when you it creeps up on you.
Brandon:
It sneaks up on you, and I think going back to what you said That’s when the confidence *** in your armor, so to speak, shows up. And then once you start questioning yourself, I think it just turns into, Ah, whole another situation.
Brandon:
And people working at home now like you’re saying they had the workplace under control, the office, wherever you are, now that they have to work from whom and there’s these other things, that’s like, Well, why am I breaking down now and not breaking down on having night?
Brandon:
Don’t know what. What do you call it like a mental breakdown, but effectively, like you start toe, have that you get scared once you get scared. That sort of happened.
Brandon:
So it’s so true. I think another reflection of this is I was recently consulting with a team that just had to go back into an office space for the first time and the wearing masks, they’re working in some tighter spaces.
Kelly:
And the younger population, the older populations like Yeah, yeah, we’re just going to do this thing. And the younger population is asking questions like, Why are we doing this? This is stupid. And the more that they were venting, the more emotion that they were heightening right. Their emotional response was just getting more intense and more intense and more intense because it’s reminding them about and this thing happen. This’ll thing happened. You could watch how in that 30 minute event, which is important because you have your your feeling, these feelings you need to experience that you need to express them on. Then you want to heal from them. You want to start to move back into recovery. You don’t want to stay on that loop, right? I was watching some these individuals. I was consulting just kind of say, after they invented African, exhausted and then, like, Of course, you are because your stress response met this moment, thinking that you were dealing with a saber toothed tiger. You see, all of this is, ah, horrible threat your body is giving you adrenaline and cortisol. You think that this is a nutty experience and it’s true. This is There’s all shades of this that don’t feel good. So your body is like but please return to the highlighted route like, let’s get the crap out of here. And in this professional moment, you’re also trying to just do the job. You have to dio What I wanted to do is I wanted to get into their heads and just say like, Okay, we gotta calm this down, because at this point, you are now burning more energy than you have. This is not going to be sustainable. This will not help you by the time you get to Friday evening. This is not gonna help you. When you are home with your family on the weekend, you’re gonna be exhausted and on at risk of getting sick. And nobody right now wants to get sick. I mean, not to be dramatic about it, but I think anybody out there is like I don’t want anything. No whammies here, please.
Kelly:
So the danger of cascading is it’s very seductive.
Kelly:
It’s Oh, yeah, this is we’re social creatures. We have memories. We tell stories So we are hooked to these waves when they come in. It’s so much more work and self awareness and presence of mind to say Wow, I need to calm myself down in this moment. I need to breathe and pause and reflect. And just because these waves are coming to me doesn’t mean I have to let them dictate my day. And that is really hard. When you turn on the news when you get home or on one of your brakes at home and you’re like Oh, my God should not have done that World is chaos. Turn off. World is chaos here, too.
Kelly:
So let’s just start with the cascading peace and let’s talk about when you notice that this is happening to you and then what do you do about it?
Kelly:
And then we’ll go a little deeper than into If you have been hanging out in that space for longer than, perhaps has been smart or wise, and you’re ready to get out of this world pool, how do you start to rebuild yourself so you don’t fall back into it?
Kelly:
There’s just one thing that I wanted to say before you get started on that is, I would suggest to people that you don’t need 100% success here.
Brandon:
No, right.
Kelly:
Like all.
Kelly:
And I think because you were talking, it was hitting me.
Brandon:
I don’t know why that I think everybody in this and I’m glad you didn’t say the word meditation yet, but I think meditations you overuse right now and it’s like, Oh, you don’t meditate. Well, no, I I don’t meditate. I ride my bike, But no, I don’t meditate. But if you could just be take the edge off, then your anxiety level will decrease.
Brandon:
So that’s all I wanted to say.
Brandon:
The listeners out there is that you don’t have to have 100% success like you’re going back to normal. I think it’s unrealistic to think that at this moment in time and that you’re going to go back to normal, whatever that normal waas. So just if you’re successful a little bit, you will have decreased your anxiety and I don’t know what else you say, Kelly.
Brandon:
Whatever that is.
Brandon:
Yeah, it’s so true.
Brandon:
There’s I do agree with you. I think that meditation is being overused as a term. I mean, this happens in the consulting. Coaching yoga communities like self love is overused, right? Meditation is now becoming overused.
Kelly:
It is. What I’m trying to get at is you want to catch yourself in the moment you are in the tailspin or you are in the world Poll and you want to even recognize that you’re there, and then you want to get the crap out of it.
Kelly:
And that might just be recognizing. And that is enough. That is your big bicep curl that you have done. That little self awareness blip is going to do more for you, then perhaps 10 minutes of meditation, because your world may not be able to tolerate that right now. A really good example of this since we’re staying with this water imagery of surfing. And I talked about the ocean earlier when I was ah, young girl, about 13.
Kelly:
I went down with my family. We went to the Atlantic beaches on I love bodysurfing. Big fan of it, like reading the waves and going out there and putting myself like trying to see if I could get all the way back into shore.
Kelly:
So we’re out there. Storm had just come through So the surface great, right? You’re really awesome. But I didn’t know at the time, and I don’t think my family did either, That that area was pretty ripped for pretty ripe for riptides. And I found myself, my sister and I both. We found ourselves in one. Now here’s the thing. My sister gets saved by some good looking guy on a fricking boogie board like she’s towed to Safety on There Is Me with my really long hair. I’m fighting the waves because I didn’t know what to do. Yet the waves are pushing my hair over my face. It’s clogs, So it’s like I’m getting waterboarded underwater, and I’m exhausting myself with every time I try to put my feet in the sand and just get ripped back out.
Kelly:
Fortunately, I made it. I’m sitting there, back on the shore, thinking that well, that I don’t know how that just happened. But I remember my parents sitting me down afterwards, saying, like the next time you do this, all you have to do Kelly is you need to do what feels crazy, which is toe let it take you out past the surf line and then swim diagonally back to shore.
Kelly:
And you’re like, I don’t want to do that because there’s sharks out there like I don’t want to go past that point.
Kelly:
Are you crazy? Like they’re like, No, it’s counterintuitive. You’ve gotta learn to do that. So you know, getting really good at your side stroke right to, like, get yourself back on the diagonal. And it’s been an important lesson, and that’s the same thing that we’re talking about here. It’s the moment where you realize you can’t breathe.
Kelly:
It’s the moment you realize you are panicking. It’s the moment you realize your mind is spinning and you have. You don’t know where you are anymore. You’re out of the present moment and it’s going to be very seductive.
Kelly:
Toe want to fight those waves, so don’t just surrender to it. Yeah, this is what I dio When that happens to me, I will sometimes put a hand on my heart or a hand somewhere on my body. Right, Because I want to start that oxytocin. I want to signal to my body. Hey, parasympathetic nervous system. We are not fighting anything right now. We can start to calm the jets down and I’ll just talk about what’s really Yeah, This is a freaking tough moment. This is really hard. I don’t have the answers to this. I don’t know what to Dio. I think I’m at the end of my rope. I think I am gonna, like, pull my hair out. I think I’m gonna, like, want to scream. I think whatever. When you say what’s true for you, you don’t always have to act on it. By the way, Well, when you say what’s true for you, all you’re doing in that moment is like like I’m in the world. That’s right, Yeah, I’m here and by not fighting it, I’m going to get myself out of it because I see what’s happening to see what’s going on.
Kelly:
And that’s really the tool.
Brandon:
That’s the tool, that’s it. And you do not have to get it 100%. In fact, let’s just level set. You won’t because you’re gonna. It’s a new habit that’s going to take time to build.
Kelly:
All we’re asking you to do is figure out in your physical body. You at home listening to this where does your body start to single thio you that you are in cascading. You’re letting the waves of life take you over your drowning. What is it? Is it a pit in your stomach? Is it that your mind is racing? Is it that you just wanna punch something? Is it that you’re getting really aggressive out there on the roads? Is it that you are short with your friends and your family? Is it that you’re trying to pick up a book and you just can’t concentrate on it? What is it you want to name it? I do think that the fairy tales tell us some truths. If you can name the monster at your gay, if you can name the thing, you will take control of it. And that’s that’s really what you’re trying to dio.
Kelly:
Yeah, I was thinking while you were talking about when I was when I’m on my bike, I was writing this weekend, and when you’re going really fast on a road bike, you you don’t have the ability toe really make a fast turn.
Brandon:
And there was something in the road, and I and your adrenaline it can happen.
Brandon:
If you’re doing anything at that high pace, it just comes up a regularly, right?
Brandon:
And I’ve gotten much better at it over the years.
Brandon:
But this weekend I was remembering I was like, Oh, yeah, my adrenaline is really pumping right now, And as soon as I did that, it brings your focus back. I don’t know, I can’t explain. It’s almost like offloads it right? Like it doesn’t have control over you. And I’m hesitant to say control because I don’t want it. Say that it does. But if you have, if you’re if you’re in, you have this adrenaline going or you have this thing. It is controlling you. It effectively is controlling you and you can’t.
Brandon:
When you’re going that fast and you make a turn, you’re basically going to kill you or definitely gonna hurt you at that speed. So if you could name it, get your head together, it really just helped you get your head together. I don’t meditate or anything, but just by being like, oh, man, I got a lot of adrenaline going through me right now. It, like, separates my body from my head, and I had that.
Brandon:
Canada is driving very fast down to L. A. And there was a raccoon in the middle of a dead raccoon in the in the in the road. And I remember this is a few weeks ago. I’m going really fast and I can’t swerve.
Brandon:
I remember the adrenaline just pumping, and you and all these trucks air around. And you know, you almost start to lose yourself in that adrenaline because taking over on this automatic thing, I was like, Brennan, your adrenaline’s going crazy because you felt like you just went through through something where you could have died, which maybe you could have. But you gotta fight, you’re not dead, and you’re moving forward still really fast. So get your head together and it just separates. I would offer the listeners to do what Kelly is saying is, just name it.
Brandon:
Just name it and watch what happens because it separates that.
Brandon:
Yeah, it breaks that loop.
Kelly:
And the other thing that we need to talk about to just briefly to mention is that sometimes you are so down in the whirlpool, you can’t name it by yourself, and it’s a good time to get help.
Kelly:
I mean, look, even if you’ve read any of the old classic Dante’s Inferno, even When Dante went down into hell, he had a guide to help him get through it. So it’s worth saying as a caveat that if you were really in the whirlpool, if you don’t know how to name it or how to get out, please get some help. Find a good friend, find a professional, find somebody. You don’t have to go through this by yourself. Nor should you mean being human is really hard. And it’s it’s harder in times when things feel out of control and extremely uncertain.
Kelly:
Yeah, I have a quote, Kelly, that that it’s not exactly.
Brandon:
But what you just said is really important is sometimes you need someone to name. But I remember I was on a hike with a friend. This is many, many, many years ago, and they were just talking out loud, and I just I guess it just came out. I was like, Man, you sound depressed.
Brandon:
He’s He’s like, Do you think so?
Brandon:
I was like, Yeah, you sound depressing when God help, and to this day it is completely changed his life from that moment, and it’s really because I didn’t do anything magical. I just was listening on a hike like sort of an automatic and and said that there was There was a quote that I saved online that I’m looking for on my phone that I can’t find right now. But it’s something to the extent it says if you about being brainwashed or something.
Brandon:
To the extent it says If you’ve been brainwashed, lied to and deceived and you don’t realize it, it’s because you’ve been brainwashed, lied to and deceived.
Brandon:
But it it applies over to this and some of that’s coming because I’m watching this series called The Vow, which is this crazy thing on HBO, and it’s actually like the Where is this crazy? I as a psychologist guy, it just fascinates me how, how that how that happens. But I think this happens in life, is you. You can’t recognize it because you’re in it. That’s really there.
Brandon:
It’s so true and we’re all in it and we do a lot of reps in it. It’s like, Oh, it’s you again, my old friend Here we are again. I thought we were done with this. Oh, I guess we’re not. I remember. Just illustrate this. I remember when I was in graduate school at Yale with your mama, but I remember when I was there I lost really just important relationship in my life, and I grieved it deeply.
Kelly:
And it was sometime when my very best friend, she just looked at me one day. I think it some time had passed, just like it’s time to be done.
Kelly:
Now. You’ve got to get back to the land of the living. It’s time to be done.
Kelly:
And I was like thinking the Irish and he was like, How can you say this to me like very dramatic, right? But she spoke truth and I knew it and she was right. And I was glad that she yanked me out of that whirlpool and I got back Thio the land of the living, so to speak. And that’s why I’m choosing to be vulnerable and sharing stories like that with you listening to this because I think if we’re all being honest, we have gone through these tougher moments in time and the cascading you’ll see I’ve mentioned a few times that cascading is really seductive, why it’s seductive. My theory on this and again I’m not a scientist studying this one. But here’s my hunch about it.
Kelly:
When you are spinning, you are in a reactive place, your emotionally charged when you are emotionally charged, you are not thinking. And if your stress responses on your senses are going to be heightened, so you’re really kind of absorbing this experience like a sponge. And when you are in that spongy, reactive space, you will be reminded of every other time in your life you have felt something similar to this and your memory.
Kelly:
The little people in your mind You’re going to go through all your file banks in your databases and they’ll be like, Oh, yeah, remember that time back in 1984 when this happened, or back in 2002 when that happened, and you because you are spongy and you are reactive, you’re gonna be like, yeah, and then your emotions are going to just keep ratcheting and whatever direction they’re going because of whatever emotion that you’re feeling so again, you just you don’t wanna You don’t want to take the bait. You don’t want to jump on that hook. You want to just stay with what you were experiencing now and really feel it, and this is contrary to a lot of I think what we see out there on social media. It’s like I don’t want to feel this. I don’t want to feel uncertainty. I don’t want to feel concerned. I don’t want to feel these things. So I’m going to numb or distract myself in a million other way, so I don’t have to be with this pain or whatever I’m experiencing because it feels uncomfortable and I don’t want to feel that way. Not today. Too much is going on, but when you do acknowledge it, when you do name it and you sit with it like of 60 seconds, the pain starts to go down.
Kelly:
People have done some remarkable studies on this.
Kelly:
Jon Kabat Zinn has done studies on this with pain, so people who haven’t been experiencing chronic pain the kind just doesn’t want to go away.
Kelly:
They have used some mind techniques to start Thio, unlock that pain cycle, and so it’s really remarkable what your mind can do when you start to just be aware, and then you choose to go into it.
Kelly:
Now, how does this link toads to self confidence to self esteem to how you see yourself.
Kelly:
I think for me and Brandon, tell me what you see in the communities in circles that you run in.
Kelly:
But one of the things I’ve seen it here on the East Coast, and I do think it’s probably very widely seen.
Kelly:
If you look at least in the West, when you are feeling things, I think you’re extremely vulnerable.
Kelly:
And when you’re vulnerable, sometimes you can lose sense of who you are because of your vulnerability.
Kelly:
You’re open and you are feeling things and you feel tender and maybe a little bit raw and not to get into a gender discussion.
Kelly:
But I do find in my work with women, especially incredible female professionals.
Kelly:
I mean, there’s a reason why they have named something called the Imposter syndrome. You know, you can have a woman who has ton out of ton of everything that is being looked for in a new job, and she’ll think, Oh, I don’t have those 10. I think I only have two of them, really, and maybe I should wait another year before I applied. You can have a man or somebody who is feeling more masculine, who could just say, Oh, I’ve got three of these, I’m good and it’s more complicated than that. But I think especially in female populations or people who see themselves more as female, there is this tendency to just hear what words air coming to you and to sometimes take the hook.
Kelly:
Take the bait off of this. I was listening to this recently because I was listening to the old play called Gaslight. Now that’s where the term gaslighting comes from. There’s a UK version of the play, but there’s also a U. S version of the play and essentially takes place.
Kelly:
Ah, woman has married a man who is in a house. He’s hunting for some treasure that might be heading up in the attic.
Kelly:
She thinks something’s going wrong. He’s trying to tell her that know everything, spying. You’re making this up. You don’t know what you’re talking about. His gaslighting, and that’s where the term actually comes from. The thing is, you don’t want to gaslight yourself. You don’t want to allow people to come to you or even in your head to start to erode who you are and what you’re about.
Kelly:
Because in an uncertain climate. You might need to really show up who you are in your fullness because of the environment. And you might find yourself at a moment. A personal hero is, um, you didn’t even know you were going to do that day so cascading when you see it, don’t go down the rabbit holes of the emotional zones.
Kelly:
It wants to take you to tow a place of really self loathing or a place of horrible self esteem.
Kelly:
Because you don’t think that you are worthy of the experience you were having or somebody is just having a bad day. Let’s take let’s take this into an example. Let’s say there’s person a and person B person A. Is having a really crappy day, Really not great kids air acting up at home. They are dealing with everything in the office. Nothing’s out of it, and they just in a moment of probably less than awesome professional behavior, take it out on the subordinate really screaming yell. Now that subordinate is Person B.
Kelly:
The Person B has also had a pretty crappy day. Person B has decided in this moment that person A might be right about them that may be what that person said you are. How did you even get this job? I can’t even believe they hired you. You know, you fill in the blank with your own creative bubble, making on that one of conversation.
Kelly:
Problem is, person B. In that moment, it’s like, Shoot.
Kelly:
This reminds me of the time when I was in college and my professor yelled at me in front of everybody media.
Kelly:
I didn’t know what I was talking about them. Maybe I don’t know what I’m talking about now.
Kelly:
Well, go down, Thio.
Kelly:
Oh, yeah, That reminds me of like this family gathering. Somebody said something to me, accused me of not really knowing stuff.
Kelly:
So really, like an idiot who did I think I waas and so on.
Kelly:
And so they start to just really decline and go down.
Kelly:
And that’s what I mean, like, you hear in that example the internal gaslighting of like, Oh, yeah, Who do you think you are? It’s kind of like being a self bully or critic, those air other ways that you can name it, But if you don’t stop that, it can really inroads yourself Confidence.
Kelly:
Now, if you’re listening and you’re like nodding alone. You’re like, Oh, yeah, I’ve been there. I’ve actually done it. I’ve been person a don’t want to do that again.
Kelly:
Well, what you’re gonna have to do is you’re gonna have to start to rebuild yourself up out of that personal world poll. And that’s going to be a slow moment by moment of acknowledging.
Kelly:
Yeah, I did it. Yep, that happened. That’s true. That was a real thing. I experienced it, and I’m really sorry I did it to myself Or get really curious what was happening in this moment that I let person a just like rip me a new one. I didn’t deserve that. Just because they’re having a meltdown doesn’t mean that needs to be my problem. Let them have their meltdown. I don’t need to absorb that energy.
Kelly:
And that’s why when you go back to the cascading conversation and being that reactive sponge, it’s so much easier to absorb other people’s stuff.
Kelly:
If you are in that highly reactive absorption state, I hope that’s making sense.
Kelly:
Yeah, it makes complete sense, and I made two notes Kelly on the so so far we talked about a tool to help with Overwhelm, which is naming what’s happening.
Kelly:
Another one I would offer is I created this trigger.
Brandon:
So I actually created the trigger of when I remember the past because, like you’re saying, it just keeps the I remember I remember.
Brandon:
It’s like so I don’t know that that was the trigger. But what I do is I created a habit that when I start to go back to the past, I say I forgive and release the past and it I and every time I can tell you like sometimes I’m brushing my teeth and I remember the past for I don’t know how that happened, but it definitely happened that that brushing the teeth triggered.
Brandon:
So I reworked the whole thing.
Brandon:
And brushing the teeth is no different than finding yourself in a situation where you say I remember. So you’re gonna have to create a trigger or a habit. It’s really a little habit. It’s not a big habit, which is when you recognize it use. You can say it, but you can also re program yourself and candidly, it took a while. I mean, it takes a lot of reps, right, but I can almost do it every time. And it brings me to the moment versus because like you’re saying it’s seductive in the sense that you’re like, Oh, I remember this And then what you’re gonna do is that’s going to trigger something else that you say.
Brandon:
Oh, and I remember this. And before you know it, you’re 25 years back in high school in some crap that didn’t even you couldn’t even control anyway, right? And you’re making it the moment. So e think you that that if you can create just a little saying or I got this from some work that I did forgive what is the same? I forgive and release the past. You could just make it. I release the past and just saying that it’s almost like, Well, can you really just do it that quickly? Yeah, you can. You really can do it that quickly So I would offer that as a told to the listeners. And the other thing that I was going to say is, and maybe you might not find yourself in it as much as I may, but I’ve been described as a very intense person, so occasionally that intensity comes out and maybe when I’m agitated, it comes out the wrong way occasionally.
Brandon:
But what I found is that when you go back, you don’t.
Brandon:
If that happens, it’s one thing that you’re focused on yourself and getting your your own crap together right in that moment. But you affected other people, and you have to recognize that. And what I found is I just go. And I find this with the bet my wife for those who don’t know that. And I was like, Hey, I’m really hungry and it changes because if you’re listening and you think about doing it, what, your partner, how many times have you gotten in an argument that was, Let’s just use because you’re hungry for me when I get hungry, I’m pretty irritable, and most people who are close to you know that.
Brandon:
And they feed me regularly, so it works well.
Brandon:
But what happens is think about what happens with your spouse. You’re hungry and you snap. I’m going to use that word and you snapped at someone because you you haven’t caught that and you don’t go back and a tely east within some good period of time.
Brandon:
Correct that the rest of your day to days could be total hell with that relationship with the person.
Brandon:
And I found that even when what I would term an adversary in the sense that maybe we work together.
Brandon:
But we don’t really I’m not gonna, like eat crabs with that person, right?
Brandon:
But we don’t hate each other, but we don’t like it. We’re just neutral. But even when it happens there and I go back, that relationship totally changes. I’ll be like, Hey, I was totally hungry or the other day event came in.
Brandon:
And after she rides the peloton, she likes to like and I know how it feels.
Brandon:
You get back from a big ride and you’re like, just wanted, like, decompress and talk for a minute and talk about things that happened. And I was like, Hey, I can’t talk right now. And then before she left the office, which isn’t that big year, I caught myself because I created Trigger. I was like, Hey, I want to talk to you.
Brandon:
But I have been working 40 minutes on trying to fix this coding error. I can’t find the code, and I’m irritated right now, so this has nothing to do with you and let me get this fixed. I’ll come back and talk to you. And I would suggest I think I get to say this after 23 years of marriage that if you do not fix it at that moment, Evette, NYU’s relationship or experience with one another is very different the rest of the day.
Brandon:
Yeah, yeah, so true.
Brandon:
And it also happens in the professional communities.
Brandon:
And it happens in the entrepreneurial communities.
Brandon:
It happens. Any place where you are working long hours with people and you another word you could use would be, like leaky, right? Like else sometimes See that with people. And we hear it also, in the martial arts community that I’m involved with, it’s like, Oh, somebody’s energy is just leaking out. It’s wiki, and like bad Burbage, it’s wiki and just like emotional IQ, and you feel it too. You’re like, I just feel like I got slimed by somebody like this isn’t my stuff like and sometimes I’ll even like, take my hands around my body and take back your stuff like this isn’t my stuff like, Look this. You deal with this, not me. This is not mine. Today I have the right to, like, not carry your stuff like a shirt for the day. I’m not doing that. I’ll get paid to do that.
Kelly:
The other way you can frame it too, is you know what I heard in what your conversation was with Event in that moment is like you were respecting her also by being transparent about where you were at. So you didn’t cause undue, unnecessary damage there, which is going to go a long way. On the other hand, it’s like you can also make sure that when you when somebody says like, man, can I just vent?
Kelly:
I just need to vent And it’s nice when people actually ask permission to event. It’s like, Okay, you recognize you are in the world, Will you recognize you’re in there and you’ve got a close buddy or ah, partner or spouse and you’re like ha ha and you just unleashed.
Kelly:
It’s always really nice before you, like, just drop all your crap in somebody else’s world to be like you have like, two minutes for me to just vent like there’s something for you to stay here.
Kelly:
I just need event and your friend spouse partner hopefully will be like yes or hate not right now, because I just did 40 minutes of coding and this isn’t working well. I’ll come back to you for the vent session, but as permission before you vent, this is like it’s a It’s a solid for you, and it’s a solid for other people.
Kelly:
And when you are the listener to the vent session, all you’re supposed to do is just be a really good guest in that person’s world. Because when the person is venting, remember, they’re not thinking there are emotionally reacted. They’re just squeezing the sponge out, and you’re just trying not to absorb it in their place. It just has hard for men.
Kelly:
Sometimes you want to fix six thing and recognizing the difference between fixing and going along, I think is ah is, uh, it could be a struggle, but I can say this if you are going to do it.
Brandon:
What you just said totally fixes it for me.
Kelly:
If Yvette says hey or anyone you are any any friend or colleague says, Hey, I’m just gonna vent.
Brandon:
Well, then I’m not in fixing mode, right, because at least I My brain understands that this isn’t about fixing, you know, maybe in comment afterwards.
Brandon:
But it’s really about listening. And one thing before I forget on the catching and telling people, why builds on another episode that you and I already did, which is storytelling, Because what’s gonna happen is if you don’t disclose so to speak, why you did that.
Brandon:
That person leaves with a story in their head that they’re going to make up. And now yeah, and and they’re they’re not going.
Brandon:
I wanted the likelihood that they’re going to catch themselves is probably not as high because they’re gonna be emotional. And now you’ve turned them into a cascading event. So you gotta what mom say, Like, understand the consequences of your actions or whatever the rules of the house or rules the universe are.
Brandon:
But I think I just wanted to say that because because that’s why the relationships in your business, especially now with working on video and voice, right, like if I can’t, you and I are looking each other people listening are only going to be listening.
Brandon:
They can’t see us. It’s almost more important to start disclosing these things because that story is going to that they’re going to make up that you snapped.
Brandon:
I’m using that word.
Brandon:
Maybe I grew up with that word, but And now you find yourself in this terribly cascading world of events That doesn’t just it doesn’t just happen in your world. Now you’ve just spread it into an entire organization.
Brandon:
Yeah, and look for anybody out there who’s ever worked on a team or has run a team, you know that it can just take one really toxic individual.
Brandon:
I mean, and I’m not saying that that person is toxic, but has a toxic personality. So negative, so bullying. So what Cynical. You name it. It can really damage a team. I mean, I think it was Google who did a big study about, like, what are actually the attributes that make a really healthy, high performing, dynamic team, and it comes down to psychological safety. Is this someone I feel psychologically safe with? I could be vulnerable with, ah, little raw with I mean not to get to the point of over sharing, but can I be human around this person and that’s gonna be OK, but what is going to take for those individuals to actually build that kind of esprit de corps is gonna take a lot longer. So ah, good way to go back to tie in. What you were saying, Brandon and what we were talking about earlier is you wanna wake up in the moment you want Oh, name it.
Kelly:
Oh, I’m here again. And if you find yourself in the past, here’s what I do. Brandon, you have your thing that you say what I usually say to myself when I’m like, going back, I’m going back in time now back to the future. But I’m going back in time. I’ll be like, Look, you have done that.
Kelly:
You have lived that it’s not gonna help you today but it points out where maybe I still have some tender bids that need some care.
Kelly:
But I may not have time in this moment or privacy in this moment to go back and to do that work. But I want to recognize like, oh, I know what this is really about. It’s not really about this person over here being kind of a jerk. It really goes back to this core moment I had when I was younger. Where I I gotta unravel that and often you could do that with a wonderful professional toe. Help you get there.
Kelly:
The other thing is your another way to frame it is You are waking your to take your word, Brandon. You’re snapping yourself out of the trance. This is a trance. You wanna you wanna wake up? I’m like, Oh, I know where this is going to take me. This takes me. No, we’re good. And, quite frankly, I need all that energy. I need it to do these things that I want to do later in my day or the things I’ve got coming up in the week. I want to be mindful about that. We mentioned If you are noticing that you need to just vent a little bit, ask first. Just put a time limit on it. And don’t go past that time limit out of respect for yourself and other people.
Kelly:
You don’t want to drown the people who support you into your world. For with you, you’re trying to squeeze that sponge out in a healthy way. And if you are the listener to the sponge fast, you want to be a great guest. This is not your time to fix it. This is not your time, Thio just validate. Yep, I hear what you’re saying. Oh, my gosh. Of course you feel that way. What a crappy day. Oh, man, Yeah, I hear what you’re saying. You want to be a great great guest because that’s how you do build that psychological safety. And that’s how you actually reaffirm.
Kelly:
Oh, yeah, you know. And if you’re listening and you’re like, man, this is a pattern I hear off this person. This is not the moment to try to correct it.
Kelly:
Not right now, not when someone’s reactive. This is something to just put a little pin in and come back when you can have a more constructive, rational, logic based conversation. When you are not so charged with all these emotions and I think those small things naming, pausing, asking for what you need and knowing where it’s going to take you your physical sensations, that’s all going to be really important, like almost a compass that you can keep in your back pocket with you.
Kelly:
And that is enough.
Kelly:
And you’re not going to get it 100%.
Kelly:
But Every time you do get it, here’s what it’s going to give you.
Kelly:
It’s going to give you increased resiliency to handle really uncomfortable moments. And when we are in uncertainty like we are these days, you are building yourself into a much more resilient person, able to handle a greater capacity to be with what’s uncertain. That’s what you can’t control, the more you try to control it unless it seems to go sometimes in our favor. So it’s just recognizing like, Oh, yeah, look at me, trying to do that thing again, trying to control the situation. You gotta stop. I got to stop it because it’s not helping me. It’s just gonna make me crazy with the situation that’s hard to dio.
Kelly:
And again, the waking up in that moment is the key There I was reading something this weekend about leadership, which is a whole another topic for another time because I find this thing over used as well find that we’re talking a lot about overuse things, maybe because we’re that heightened sense of awareness of everything at the moment.
Kelly:
But there was, I forget whether it was forget what it was, but the saying was, If you want to lead, you gotta lead yourself first and and I think that’s because I was thinking I was gonna say, Kelly, you know, one of the other things that helps me when I’m when I’m on the receiving end of some of this stuff, I always remind myself everybody is struggling with a story and it helps me not be Aziz emotionally charged at that moment.
Kelly:
It doesn’t mean I think there’s a balance you have to keep because you could overuse that and be dismissive of someone’s feelings and that that that’s, ah, high risk.
Brandon:
But I think when you received that, you’re like, OK, man, everybody’s got a story.
Brandon:
I acknowledge that if there’s something here I did wrong, I’m take responsibility for it.
Brandon:
But maybe it’s not this extreme things, So I would offer that, as in my head, I’ve got these three tools that we were going behind with is recognizing some sort of triggered self affirmation for lack of a better or affirmation for lack of a better way to put it and then just recognizing when you’re on the receiving end that somebody has a story and that it might you know, humans air Very focus.
Brandon:
We have this like, don’t be selfish thing, but humans really are focused on themselves, right?
Brandon:
It’s like the gym.
Brandon:
Somebody says, Brandon, I can’t go to the gym because everybody’s watching me now actually, likely that they’re watching themselves in the mirror.
Brandon:
That’s why there’s mirrors there.
Brandon:
Everybody in the gym is looking at themselves.
Brandon:
They’re not looking.
Brandon:
They’re not staring at you.
Brandon:
So there’s this this idea that you’re humans always wanna talk about me and self centered.
Brandon:
But I’m offering that third idea just because it will it will get you from reacting as quickly. I’m not saying that that’s because because it it could be hard to do not have that, but yeah, yeah, there’s a nice little micro practice here.
Brandon:
The way I like to do it is okay.
Brandon:
I’ve caught myself. I’m in the world pool, I’m spinning. I’m cascading name whatever you want there. So I’m naming it. I’m pausing. I pause before I do anything else because I don’t want to react necessarily. I want to get a good handle on what’s going on for me and my internal space so that I know how I want to behave in my external space, so I want to be a good person to myself. I want to acknowledge what’s true, and then I wanna breathe. And I wanna ask myself, Okay, knowing all of this, what’s important right now?
Kelly:
And it might be right now. Kelley, the most important thing is you’re going to go into that meeting and you were going to be the most relaxed person. And that’s the thing.
Kelly:
In another situation, it might be. What’s important right now is I just don’t lose my cool. If it’s another thing, it might be that.
Kelly:
You know what? I don’t even know what to do right now, so I’m just going to say, Hey, I need some time. I’m gonna come back to you because I’m not sure I don’t have a good answer yet. Let me get back to you and have a think about it.
Kelly:
That’s going to be incredibly important, because remember when you pause and I think this is sometimes neglected when we talk about just so much and just consultancy your leadership or mindfulness wherever you want to go with it. Pausing is where you feel the most. That’s where you’re going to get the most intelligence because you are not rushing into your next thing. You are not reacting. You are going to move from a place that’s from your core that is going to you’re going to move.
Kelly:
I remember I may have shared this story, Brandon, so I forgive me if I have in the past. But for those who might be listening to it for the first time, I’m a long time martial artists. I’ve been practicing martial arts since I was 19 years old, so that’s more than 20 years won’t get into how much past 20 it is. But it’s more than 20 and I’ve had just great fortune to study with some terrific teachers.
Kelly:
And I remember when I was getting into Ki aikido. Ki aikido is the study of the energy. The key right, the key, the life force upon or whatever.
Kelly:
And I remember this very short Vietnamese master, my son say keep is like Alright, guys pushed me over and you’re like you know, he he asked. This guy was like, 6 ft six to push him over, and he’s like, 5 ft one. So you’re like, Oh yeah, you know Bill’s going to take them down like let’s see how this happens.
Kelly:
No sense. I pushed Bill down and pushed pretty much all of us down. And he’s like, How do you think I did that? And we’re like, Well, because your son say he’s like, No, no, no, no, like, Come on, guys, how do you think I did that correct answer is you guys.
Kelly:
He used his cheap right. He used his key energy. He he decided that he was full of himself, and he wasn’t gonna let something bigger and taller and wider than him push him around. He was going to be in control of himself. And that’s the same thing. I’ll never forget that, because I remember when I had to experience it myself. You know, one of the things you do when you are an early white belt in the system, as you just have people pushing against you all the time. And the whole point is they’re trying to get at you mentally, physically, so that you actually get pushed over you. When you get up in your head and you start spinning, you get pushed over a lot faster than when you go down into your core and you believe in you, it’s not as effective, and I remember them saying like This is going to take a while for you to get I took about three months when I finally could stand there and have all of these senses not just one, but like the people who were studying under him and they all lined up and we’re trying to push me over.
Kelly:
I could feel like No, it was almost like neo in The Matrix, like I’m not going to allow this energy to come and rock me over. And I felt like a freaking badass when it was all over.
Kelly:
But the way you take it out of the dojo and you take it into real life is people’s energies can be like that 6 ft 6% there.
Kelly:
They could just be in a foul mood. They can be a bully. They could be just crabby. They can be having a really a lot that they’re dealing with, that it’s struggling.
Kelly:
It’s it’s hard for them. But you don’t have to let it knock you around and you don’t have toe. Let the wave of that get into you and degrade yourself esteem in your own self confidence.
Kelly:
So I rambled there for a little bit, but I think that you wanted to share a story, and it’s probably a good place to end.
Kelly:
Let’s go over the three h p.
Brandon:
T. S. That we dropped throughout here.
Brandon:
So what? We spent some time. I’ll just set it up. What? We spent today’s session talking on was about cascading. How do you deal with being overwhelmed? How do you notice when you are an overwhelmed and then what do you do after it? So our high value points where first you want to name it the moment you name it. Oh, I’m in the world pool. Oh, I’m getting seduced by the stories I’m making up in my head. Oh, I am, you know, in danger of, like, spinning for hours. Oh, I’m whatever name it. Remember the old fairy tales. Name it and you’re in control of it. No, no. What you’re dealing with the second one after naming is you’re gonna pause before you do anything. This pause is brilliant. You could use it to just take a couple of deep breaths and keep your prefrontal cortex online. Keep keep your ability the language online. You’re not gonna let the stress, um, response hijack you there. You wanna feel what’s going on with you? You want your own intelligence before you perceived the next thing. And the third thing is you want to ask yourself before you do anything past pausing what’s important right now and then you do whatever you say that that ISS and you might have to do that 10 times a day and that’s all that’s all good.
Kelly:
Well, there you have it.
Kelly:
Everybody, take those tips, put them into action.
Kelly:
Sen.
Kelly:
Kelly and I note we’ll do another episode.
Brandon:
Maybe in a few weeks.
Brandon:
Gosh, it’s already October. So maybe we’ll do one in November.
Brandon:
Yeah, And for anyone listening out there, remember, being human isn’t easy, but you don’t have to make it as hard for you by making it harder on yourself.
Kelly:
There you have it, Kelly. Thanks for joining me today. Appreciate it. It’s always fun. We will have the full Siri’s nine days. Turn yourself into a powerhouse out soon, and we’ll let everybody know when that happens.
Brandon:
Yeah, thanks. Everyone. Listen to be kind to you hang in there? Yeah. Just be kind to you.
Kelly:
We’ll see you later, OK, Bye.
Brandon:
Alright. How good was that, Kelly? Thanks for doing another episode. We will aim to do another one in another month or so covering another one of the topics that we did in the nine days to turn yourself into a powerhouse Siri’s that Kelly and I did in our mind mastery 100 class.
Brandon:
If you enjoyed this episode, please hit. Subscribe and leave us a review.
Brandon:
We appreciate all of your support in time to do that until the next episode.
Brandon:
Remember, you really are just one business plan away.
Brandon:
I’m rooting for your success.
Brandon:
We’ll see you soon
