Leading & Self-Managing Through Adverse & Ambiguous Times with Steve Gavatorta

Hello and welcome to Shedding the Bitch Radio, where you can discuss, debate, and get advice on how to discover and shed the bitches of fear, insecurity, self-doubt, and negative mindsets so you can realize your dreams and life purpose. And create and accelerate the riches you want in life. Join us here live every Tuesday at noon Eastern and dialogue with us at 818-572-2910. You can also chat with us at blogtalkradio.com/sheddingthebitch or share your stories on our website at sheddingthebitch.com. Whatever the bitch is that's holding you back from living your life to the fullest, it's not worth giving up the riches in life that you deserve. So call in now and let Bernadette Boas know what's holding you back. 818-572-2910.

Good day, good day, good day everyone, and welcome to Shedding the Bitch Radio. And of course, I'm Bernadette Boas, and we have a guest in the studio, Steve.

Hi Steve, good morning, how you doing today?

I'm very good, how are you?

Very good, very— despite all this craziness, there's sunshine in the background and a lot of optimism too.

So yeah, good, that's a beautiful thing. We're cloudy here. Where are you, by the way?

Tampa, Florida. I don't want to turn my video around to show you what I'm looking at now, but it's pretty nice. So hopefully I'll share some sunshine.

Nice, nice, nice. Well, I'm in Atlanta, as everyone listening knows, and I'm looking up at my skylights and we're kind of cloudy and cold here today, but that's okay because sunshine, you know, kind of breaks through any of those clouds. So we're going to have a good day and a good conversation. Before we dive into it, Just as a reminder for everyone, you can always go to sheddingthebitch.com/radiopodcast for all of our episodes that we've had over the years, actually, and as well as on blogtalkradio.com and a number of your streaming services. So be sure to go out there, subscribe, follow us, and like the episodes and download what you, you know, what really kind of hits us sweet spot in regards to what you'd like to learn more of, and then be with us every Tuesday at noon Eastern time for another episode of Shedding the Bits Radio. But what we're going to be talking about today is all around leading and self-managing through adverse and ambiguous times with Stephen Gavittorta.

How—

so I'm very excited about that. And in His kind of philosophy or his take on this is the fact that in our fast-paced, high-tech, ever-evolving world, world, the speed of change, decision, decision-making is getting faster. So is my talking, obviously. The level of competition is fiercer, and adversity, ambiguity is striking harder than ever. As this is the current and future state of our world, it is imperative that people stay level-headed and focused to effectively function at optimal capacity. The ability to be that stabilizing influence in a world of constant disruption can provide a true competitive advantage and determine the long-term success of any individual and company. This topic will provide insights on facing, overcoming, and learning from obstacles while also realizing that failure, change, and adversity can be leveraged as a positive catalyst for growth. Now, what I want you to be listening for— there's a few things you could be listening for. Um, discovering what occurs in your brain during adversity. Learn about emotional intelligence and its critical importance in building resilience and perseverance. Pinpoint personal triggers and responses to adversity. Discover wise and inspirational insights and skills from highly successful individuals. Gain practical real-world tools and skills to learn from, grow with, and leverage adversity to create long-term sustainable success. We love that. We love that. We love that. Now for Steve and anyone else who's joining for the first time, I like to ground you in our topics in a rich question, something that you could be considering within your own world, within your own space, that then you'll pay attention to, to get an answer to in our conversation. So this is your rich question for today: on a scale of 1 to 10, very simply, 10 being the best, how do you handle adversity? So that's your question, 1 to 10. How do you handle adversity? And if you're down at like the 1 to 5 and you don't handle adversity really well, then stay with us because this is going to be a great conversation. Now, some rich tags you could be using if you're Facebooking or tweeting with us: you can use #leadership, #emotionalintelligence, or #shedthebitch. All right, all right, let's dive into this conversation, shall we? But let me do an intro. Let us make sure we know Steve, um, so Steve Gavittorta, owner of the Steve Gavittorta Group, specializes in empowering individuals and organizations in identifying, developing, and exceeding performance goals. We love that. Steve has had the privilege of coaching and training thousands of high performers across an array of industries, from small businesses onto the— on the move to Fortune 500 companies. Steve collaborates with organizations to build foundation, set goals, and eclipse their highest potential. Steve is a Certified Professional Behavioral Analyst and Certified Professional Values Catalyst, a Certified Myers-Briggs Practitioner, and accredited to coach and train for emotional intelligence, or EQ.

That's great.

He is a two-time, two-time published author, and his new book— his new book is In Defense of Adversity: Turning Your Toughest Challenges into Your Greatest Success. He won the Richter's Publishing Amazon Bestseller Award for 2018, and he resides in Tampa. So you can go to, as we're talking, if you are in a safe place, not when you're driving, but if you're in a safe place, go to gavatorta.com and you can learn all about Steve. Well, Steve, I'm so thrilled you're here. And as we talked about as we were coming onto the show is the fact that you were getting a lot of people reaching out to you, especially leaders in business around this topic of adversity. So why is this topic, um, especially as we go through the pandemic, but why is this topic so relevant and so critical for everyone to get their hands around?

Because everyone faces— great question— because everyone faces adversity most likely every day in their lives in some capacity. The interest now is obviously because of the pandemic going down, the unprecedented time, social distancing, being put out of our comfort zone, the ambiguity, all these things are driving, you know, people's interest in how do we face this? How do we overcome this? What can we learn from this? How can I get through this? So that's a main driver now. But even before that, as I was researching my book, I'm not sure if it still holds to this day. But as I was researching my book, when I would Google the phrase, how to deal with adversity, it would bring back over 21 million results. So obviously, this is a hot topic, right? People want to learn how to deal with difficulties, want to learn how to deal with difficult people, want to learn how to deal with failure, change, ambiguity. So I think this is just a general topic as a human being, the desire to be— not only face obstacles, but hopefully overcome them, at least learn valuable lessons from them. So I think it's a hot topic in general. But The pandemic that we're going through now is really driving that more so now. And as you said earlier, too, I always say we're in a fast-paced, high-tech, ever-evolving world. The speed of change is hitting us faster than ever, adversity striking us harder, the need to make decisions is getting quicker. And this is the— what— this is the current and future way of our world.

So, right, right.

We're not— we don't often have skills to deal with that. So I think people are seeking such skills to get through these crazy times.

Sure. And so what would you say are kind of the top responses that people are having in this, you know, in— well, let's let— because I often say that I don't, you know, we're not going to use that word just simply because of the fact that so many people are just so heavy in talking about it. But adversity is every day, you know, something can come up that's going to just take you off course and really, you know, take you to the bed, as they say. But so how would you say, um, you know, people respond to adversity?

Yeah, it's going to depend on the person first and foremost. You know, what might be a positive change for one person that challenges them, they enjoy change, uh, could be a motivator. Another person may hate change. It could be a demotivator, seen as adversity. So adversity is deeply personal to the person. And what I try to focus on is more, uh, if you're handling adversity in a positive manner, you look at it as a challenge, you look at it as an opportunity to learn and grow and evolve and transform, that's a good thing. What I try to focus on are those people who struggle with it, struggle with ambiguity, adversity, change, uh, unprecedented times like we're going now, and ambiguity. And typically the response, if you're not functioning— and we can talk about this more— if you're not functioning in what I call your rational brain, you're going to respond emotionally— freeze, fight, or flight, or various manifestations of that. If I'm in that fight mode, I might get angry over it, I might get frustrated over it.

I—

freeze mode, I could shut down emotionally and, and be so self-absorbed that I'm not able to think clearly, think out of the box. And if I'm in a flight mode, I'm just not going to deal with it. I'm going to run away and hope things get better and not handle it accordingly. So what I like talking about is realizing, as you said earlier, those triggers, those things that may see It's really going to depend on the individual on how they respond to that.

Absolutely, absolutely. And so what would you say is a great lesson that someone can, or that maybe even you took away, or you, you know, you are coaching and training thousands of people from small business to Fortune 500. So what would you say has been the greatest lessons that people walk through when it comes to dealing with adversity?

Excellent question. I think first and foremost, before we go on, I think adversity is placed in our lives for a reason. Yes, I say help us grow, transform, and evolve into the people we were meant to become. One of my favorite quotes, I'm going to paraphrase, is the devil "Man cannot be perfected without trial, nor man can be perfected without adversity." And I think that's a great metaphor for a lot of my— I think the greatest lessons I've learned is to really, really remain patient, calm, cool, collected during adversity. It's only then that you're going to be able to find answers to how I'm going to handle this or think out of the box or make good decisions. So it is imperative to have a collective mindset. That's when you're going to learn your lessons. That's where you're going to find your way through these obstacles.

Yeah.

You know, when people say be calm, be patient, don't get angry, think clearly, you know, it can be frustrating to some people because it's like, I don't want to hear that.

Right.

But it's not just a— these. There's a reason for that. There's brain— there's science behind the importance of staying calm and brain functionality to support that. So I think you say it's lessons learned, or to remain calm, and you'll be able to find a way out of an adverse situation.

Okay, so, but, you know, realistically though, you know, when people are in the middle of a storm and, you know, they can't see clearly, they can't see through the, you know, through those you know, pouring rains and those clouds and that lightning, um, and therefore they are in turmoil. Um, yes, we don't want to necessarily say, oh, just calm down, but how do they— how can they make a shift? What can they be doing to kind of get out of their head, like you said, get out of being irrational and emotional, and to kind of quell and go quiet? What, what do you suggest that they do in order to successfully do that.

Yeah, and again, that is a deeply personal thing because once we're in that stage of freeze, fight, or flight, we cannot automatically get unmad, or we can't automatically unshut down. We've got to walk away from that situation and find something that works or a way for us to decompress and get ourselves back into that, uh, what I call the rational state of mind, your cortex part of your brain. Again, when I'm gonna freeze, fight or flight emotional mode, I'm not going to see clearly, I'm not going to be thinking clearly. So you've got to find a way out of that moment to get your mind out of that emotion. So it's dependent upon a person. For me, if I'm in an adverse situation, I'm in that emotional state, I've got to walk away from the situation, go for a walk, go for a run, go work out, go do yoga, go confide in a friend, a coach, Someone can help you again think clearly because once again, when you're in that, what I call the limbic state of your brain, that emotional brain, again, you can't get out of that state. If I were you, what I would do is call someone, a trusted friend you can vent and talk to, because that's the only way you're going to be able to get out of that state. You can't get away. Yeah, does that make sense? It does.

I know it absolutely, it absolutely does. So, um, what would you say, what would you say people's perception or attitude toward adversity is? Like, what does it look like to them?

Yeah, it's— again, that's going to depend on the person. And I often tell people two things you have to do. It's your perception of adversity that is going to deal with it. And I talk about two things: acceptance and acknowledgement. The number one thing is to accept that adversity is part of life. It's part of our path. Once we accept that, we don't get surprised when it's happened. We don't get frustrated. We don't shut down. We don't get angry. Oh, here we go again. We're able to think, okay, this is a part of life. This happens. Change is a part of life. Ambiguity is a part of life. So the acceptance that it happens in our life is important, number one, because it keeps us in that rational part of our brain. But the part two of that is acknowledge that it's placed in our lives to help us grow, transform, and once again evolve into the people we were ultimately meant to become. So I think acceptance, acknowledge our perception of that, is going to be key in our ability to face, learn, and overcome.

So why do you think, um, because I'm with you, I, I, you know, I, I look at adversity as an opportunity. I look at it, you know, um, I, you know, not to say I don't get in my head, mind you, but I kind of know that there's something in this adversity that I'm supposed to be learning from, whereas other people, you know, kind of take to the bed, as I say. Um, why is that? Like, what How are our brains wired so differently, do you think?

Okay, there's two, and that's what I wanna really get to. There's two important parts of our brain I wanna talk about. First is the limbic system. Not sure if you've heard about that before, but the limbic system is also known as our emotional brain. That's what we're born with and it does not evolve through time. It bode well when we were babies or we were cavemen and women, When we're in that limbic state of mind, or limbic part of our brain, when adversity strikes, our adrenaline starts rushing. We're going to be emotional. Freeze, fight, or flight.

Right.

So once again, when we were babies, when we were hungry, we cried. When a dinosaur— when we were cavemen and women, a dinosaur came, we ran. We were afraid. We didn't want to know when we were cavemen and women and babies, but not when we're grownups. So, and the other, so the other part of the brain is our cortex. The cortex is known as our rational brain. And that does evolve, grows. Bad times more if we allow that to happen.

Right.

It, that's where lessons are learned through our education system, through athletics, through our experiences. Our cortex evolves. And that's where we can draw lessons. That's where we can solve problems. That's where we can make wise decisions. So obviously, when we're in an adverse situation, we want the functional, rational part of our brain. That's where we're going to find those answers. If I'm stuck in freeze, fight, or flight, I'm not thinking clearly. I'm not going to be able to respond accordingly. So that's, that's why I talk— it's imperative to be in that rational state of being. Because once I'm mad, I can't get unmad immediately. Once I'm shut down, I can't get unshut down immediately. It's going to take time.

Can't smack somebody upside the head. I can't go boing.

Well, it all depends who they are. Some people may be motivated for that. So going back to your question, what I do is I tie this brain functionality piece into for a behavioral assessment called DISC. Are you familiar with DISC?

Oh yes, oh yeah, and I use it with my clients as well.

Yep, perfect, perfect. So if you are— for your listeners, DISC is a behavioral assessment, and there are 4 base behavior styles. DISC is an acronym for those 4 styles. D stands for dominance, I stands for influencer, S stands for steadiness, C stands for compliance. And based on your DISC style can determine your response to adversity. So going to your question, why do we respond differently? Because we're different human beings, we have different experiences, we have different behavior and personality types. So the basic rule of thumb is those people who are the high D or dominant style are typically fighters. Those who are the influencer styles are typically flighters. Those who are the steadiness styles are freezers. And those are the compliance styles, or freezers or fighters. So that's the base rule of thumb, is when we are on that limbic state of mind, that non-productive emotional state of mind, as a dominant style, I've got to be aware of those triggers that can set me in that emotional state of fight. If I'm an influencer, I've got to be aware of those triggers that set me in that emotional state of flight. And same for the other two styles as well too. So That's the reason we deal with it differently. Our experiences, our styles, and it's imperative for us to know our behavior style to help us understand those things that may trigger us.

Yeah.

And what that response is so we can better self-manage that.

Sure.

Once I've been able to understand that brain functionality piece and my emotional response, I've been able to better manage through adverse times. Because I know based on my DiSC style, those things are going to trigger me and what it feels like, so I can better manage that. I'm a freezer and a fighter. And if I let the adversity get better of me, or if it's during ambiguous times or dealing with change, if I'm not keeping myself in that rational state of being, I could freeze, I can shut down. Then I can fight back, both of which are not productive places to be. So that self-knowledge is key.

No, well, hey, yeah, amen to that. Self-knowledge is key, and that's a great tool for, you know, for our listeners to consider. And especially when you reach out to Steve, um, to, you know, really want to have that into your— in your toolkit is one of those DiSC assessments that you can really understand your, your responses, um, to things, especially adversity. I love that. What would you say is the, um, are the greatest strengths from real leaders, real leaders, when it comes to adversity? And do they, and do they tend to fall into a particular one of those DISC profiles?

Great question. What I look at is I tie emotional intelligence and leadership together. I'm not sure how much your viewers know of emotional intelligence, but look at it. Look at IQ, how smart we are, how brain smart we are. EQ is how astute we are, are we, with regard to our emotions, our own emotions, and the emotions of those people we're dealing with. So I subscribe to the fact great leaders have high EQ, high emotional intelligence, and I'll get into that in a bit. You can be the smartest person in the world, have high IQ, but if you're, if you explode all the time, or you're not an effective communicator, or you come across defensive. You can be the smartest person in the world, but you're going to be a poor leader because you have low EQ. I'm sure a lot of your viewers have run into those type of people.

Yeah.

So my, my point is great leaders have high emotional intelligence. And that really consists of 3 parts. First, you have strong intrapersonal skills. You're very aware of yourself, what your motivators are, how you communicate, what— how you deal with change, risk, and conflict. All those things we're talking about, the The more you can become self-aware of your style from a DiSC perspective or your motivators, the more effective you are going to be at self-managing, self-awareness. If I'm a Type A personality and I'm too feisty to people all the time, I'm not going to be effective. But if I'm aware I'm a Type A personality, I can better calm that and manage that behavior, especially as I'm dealing with others. Development of intrapersonal skills, that's self-knowledge, is number 1. Interpersonal skills is number 2. How well can I connect, interact, engage, and communicate with others? How well am I aware of their motivators, how they deal with change and risk and conflict? Because if I'm aware of the people I'm engaging with, I'm working with, I'm going to be able to push their hot buttons. I'm going to be able to know what motivates this person versus that person. So I'm going to be more effective as a leader, right? If I have high intrapersonal skills and interpersonal skills, I'm going to be able to better persevere, uh, be resilient, solve problems, make wise decisions, and help those folks I'm leading do the same as well.

Yeah. Well, let me touch on something in that regard and ask you something, because I think you touched on something really important for our listeners to ensure they take hold of is the fact that you're, you're through this conversation that we're having, that Steve is sharing with us, there's a degree of self-awareness, which is what he mentioned in intrapersonal. But I love the fact that what we all need to keep in mind is if we want to be able to communicate and lead other people more effectively, because a lot of people in our community, they, you know, they are, they're challenged with really making it a productive, effective team. Well, so I love the fact that you're talking to the, to the point of then, you know, understand how they are motivated, understand how they deal with conflict and adversity and all these other things, because then you'll know how to manage and lead them. So I would suspect, Steve, do you then suggest that, you know, I'm sure with your individual coaches, coach lead coach clients that are probably leaders, that they not only do the DiSC for themselves, but they also do the DiSC for their team members. So now they all have an idea of how they best work together.

Absolutely, yeah, because now that's— that helps me understand my team better. And I call it the team chessboard. You know, when you can lay out the DiSC styles of your entire team, you're going to have it laid in front of you how you need to communicate, motivate, engage with all your different people. And first and foremost, realize that I as a leader may not be the same style or, or have the same motivators or deal with change, risk, and conflict the same as all my team members or those people I'm leading. So it's imperative from that intrapersonal side to understand myself first. So take the DiSC survey for myself, but also have my team take that as well so I can know the hot buttons to push on those folks as well.

Yeah.

And that's where that EQ comes in. If I have low EQ, I may not be aware of my— how I function in that limbic or that emotional state of being. So as I said, if I'm a Type A personality, a high D, I may be prone to anger. So if I get angry or I get impatient, or if I, you know, move too quickly for the team, I'm no longer productive. 'cause I'm functioning with anger or impatience. I'm not productive. And I can actually set my team into a non-productive emotional state too. Freeze, fight, or flight. So now neither of us are productive. So once again, understanding myself can help me keep that optimal brain, my brain operating at optimal capacity. But I can also know the hot buttons and how to keep my team in that optimal level as well, to who I can approach and maybe a little bit be more assertive with. And that is a way they like to be approached versus another person. I'm going to have to walk through and help them understand why this change is going on or how we can maneuver through. Because once again, if I'm in that nonproductive emotional state or my team members are in that nonproductive emotional state, we're no longer productive. We're not going to solve problems.

Right.

We're not going to make wise decisions. So to your point, Anyone who can take that type of survey and raise that awareness of emotional intelligence, it's a huge key. It's a huge key.

So we, we mentioned in the kind of the intro about kind of the strengths and the qualities of highly successful people in dealing with adversity and conflict. So what are some of those examples that you would, you would be able to share with us?

So you're saying what type of skill sets and whatnot?

Yes.

Yeah. Great communicator, willingness to learn, willingness to— enjoyment out of solving problems, making decisions, looking at adversity as a chance to grow, transform, and evolve. Looking at adversity as a chance to seek a competitive advantage or to see that as an opportunity to advance. So that open-mindedness, so to speak. So I think openness, willingness to learn, fearlessness, and our willingness to face, learn, and grow. Like, adverse times. Yeah, effective communicator, have the pulse, have their fingers on the pulse of each of those people they're leading. So really driving that EQ, that intra— anything around driving your intrapersonal skills and interpersonal skills, I think is key. And willingness to learn, grow, and look at adversity as a chance to solve a problem, make a decision, and grow. I think that is the number one factor.

Well, and but, um, I know some people— adversity, conflict and adversity, you know, kind of go hand in hand. But adversity, people might look at it as, well, that's just, you know, a situation like the name that will go unsaid. Um, but yet at the same time, a lot of people, they are not good at confronting conflict. They don't, you know, they don't want to deal with conflict, which they see to be kind of more immediate, more kind of sudden. All of a sudden a conflict erupts.

Yeah.

So as opposed to adversity might take some time to go through the ebbs and the flows of it. So what would you say to those that really have an issue, even when it comes to like, you know, confronting someone that might be, you know, bullying them or demeaning them? I mean, what would you say to them as far as you know, what they need to do to shift their attitude toward it.

That's correct. And once again, just like everything else you're saying, a willingness to, uh, deal with conflict is going to be— it's deeply personal. So once again, let's go into those four DISC styles. If you're, if you're not, uh, dealing with conflict in a— again, you're most likely in that limbic state, you're in that emotional state. So A dominant style is going to deal with conflict very confrontationally. They're going to come at you hard. They're not afraid of conflict. In fact, they like it. An influencer style is a flighter. They're not going to want to deal with it head on. They're going to want to know, I'm going to act like it's not there. I'm going to act like it's going away. A steadiness style is going to freeze. They're not going to address it all either. And a compliance style is going to either freeze or fight. So once again, understanding your style, DISC style, would be a great start.

Sure.

Understanding how that manifests in an emotional non-productive state would be the second step. Thirdly, now what do we do about it? I think the important part there is to know who we're confronting. If you're confronting a dominant style person, you've got to hit them square between the eyes, not in a bad anger type manner, but to be direct and state to them this is not proper how you're— let's use like you're speaking to me in a gruff manner or angrily at me, or maybe using even four-letter words. You know, I think it's perfectly okay to say, listen, I can't talk to you when you're angry like this. When you're, when you're dealing— when you're swearing at me, or when you're dealing with me in this manner, it's not productive for me. So I think maybe we need to, you know, decompress a little bit and come back and have this discussion when things are when you're a little more clear-headed. That way you're handling a dominant style straightforward. You're not being nasty to them. You're not being mean to them, but you're helping them understand that, listen, talking to me in this manner is not acceptable.

Right.

And that's tougher if you're, if it's a, if you're speaking to a boss or a manager. But there are ways to be more direct, to the point with that person so they are not overrunning you or bullying, bullying you.

So that point, so that, to that point though, so as a coach, so do you kind of guide them and kind of, you know, help them frame that approach that they're going to take to deal with the particular personality or the particular profile of that individual? Is that your role that you play with your clients to kind of help them not only with the confidence to, to do it, but more so, you know, when dealing with an I, you need to do, you know, X, Y, and Z, frame it this way. Is that one of your main roles and functions?

Yes, it is. And so there's two parts that if we know the DiSC style of that other person, that's great.

Right.

We know it's a colleague and we know it's a high— if I'm a high D and my colleague's a high S, I'd work with that high D in helping he or she better confront that S to get the most out of that relationship, to not let it be so confrontational. If it is a— out, uh, like a customer where we don't know their DiSC style, what I will do is I will work with my client to help them profile what they think the DiSC style is of that person, then build that plan of action towards that person. Because once again, we're not all created the same. We have different fingerprints, we have different DNA, so there's not a cookie-cutter approach for how I deal with customers, right? It wanted to be dependent upon their DiSC style and how they want to be approached. So once again, if we know the style of that person, again, say it's an internal colleague, it's, it's easier because we can, we know, hey, Joe Blow is a high D, or Susie's a high I, here's what we need to do. But if it's an external person or external customer, The first step is really defining. Tell me what you— through— and I use a process to determine what we think that person's style is, right? Then we build the action plan accordingly.

Awesome, awesome. Because, you know, I just want to make sure that our listeners recognize that you don't need to be alone and trying to work, you know, work through those, you know, situations if you are all in your head around it. You know, you need some logic, you need some lack of emotion, and you might need a sounding board, you know, like a Steve, in order to, in order to, you know, help you and guide you through it. So I definitely want to get into your book, In Defense of Adversity, and how it may help our audience.

Yay!

Yay!

Well, wait a minute, because I want to I want to— it's In Defense of Adversity: Turning Your Toughest Challenges into Your Greatest Success, which is the, which is the hook, um, into your greatest success. So tell us a little bit about it and how it came about.

Yeah, it's, it's definitely not a fluff book. It's— and I think it's, it's very much needed for today for multiple reasons. The high-tech, ever-evolving world, this pandemic we're going through. You know, we have, we have in the business world training around selling skills or leadership skills in schooling, skills to help people deal with adversity on a daily basis. So it's based off of 4 core foundations. It's not a fluff book. The first part is, I interviewed over 60 highly successful individuals on 5 questions around how they faced adversity, what were their learnings, how they overcame it, who, what habits do they do to help them prepare for adversity, and who are role models or people they lean on to solve, deal with adversity on a productive basis. And I interviewed 60 people or surveyed 60 people on this. The responses I, I received, Bernadette, were out of this world. And that is some of the content in the book, and I peppered a lot of that information through the book. So that's part one. The second part of that is the brain functionality piece I talked about, is understanding how our brain functions under stress and whether we are in that limbic system or cortex part of our brain, and how to function, how we want to function in that cortex part of our brain. Then I connect the dots between that to the DiSC styles, as I had mentioned. So that's the third pillar. And the fourth pillar is really my experience, uh, 21 years in corporate America and 17 years as a business owner. Those are the pillars and foundations, um, that, that build, uh, the foundation for this book. Um, how it came about is really cool. Um, I'm from a small coal mining town in Pennsylvania.. And, um, it was cold. We— I grew up around coal mines, steel mill. So I grew up around every ethnic group possible, all, every ethnic. I, I do not understand in many ways political correctness today because we all got along and we teased each other relentlessly.

Yeah.

But, um, about 7 years ago I was in my hometown. I asked my dad to go, uh, I wanted to see where he grew up and it was a little coal mining village. Not pretty houses, these little tiny tenement houses. And my father was— there's where Dr. Spadojins grew up. There's where Dr. Maropus grew up. There's where Dr. Strossi grew up. There's where Barry Alvarez grew up. Some of your listeners may not know who Barry Alvarez is, but he's the current athletic director at the University of Wisconsin., and their all-time winningest football coach.

Oh, wow.

But it really hit me.

It really hit me.

What a great story. You had all these immigrants coming from everywhere around the country, not speaking English, not speaking each other's language, let alone English, and became doctors, lawyers, businessmen and women, pro athletes. And it was really a great story to tell, especially in this crazy day and age. And as I researched the topic, my findings were what made these people so successful was the adversity that they faced. They leveraged that adversity as an advantage, and that drew out the name of my book, In Defense of Adversity: Turning Your Toughest Challenges into Your Greatest Success.

That's a great story. I love that story. And you need to actually, uh, being, you know, I mean, I'm always trying to think of ideas for writing. That would make a good kind of fictional story, that coal mining town. Would make a great fictional story, just all the different characters and personalities and cultures and, and whatnot.

Anyway, I interviewed a lot of these families, and the interviews in and of themselves were utterly amazing. Several families I interviewed, their ancestors came to America. For some reason, they were sent back to their country, whether it was they didn't have a sponsor or whether there's some sort of something political. And just the stories of the trials and tribulations of their families coming here. And you're exactly right, there probably are stories out there like now, but they need to be told to help people understand that, um, we may have it tough now, but I think, uh, may not be anything compared to what our ancestors had, had gone through. And once again, how they leveraged that difficulty and became people they ultimately became, and they had offspring that became quite successful as well.

Right. Well, it's also a story of the fact that America is an immigration country, but we won't go in that— we won't go there. Um, let's see. Um, so obviously we've been talking a lot about the brain and, you know, and for some that, you know, they just eat that up, and for others they're just kind of like, I'm not really sure what that all, you know, ties to, uh, my emotional state and my emotional being. So what would you say about understanding, you know, brain science as a way to really understanding your ability, someone's ability to successfully face obstacles and trials that come up in their world?

You cannot effectively make wise decisions, think clearly, see out of the box, handle problems, resolve conflict if you're in an emotional state of mind. If you're freezing, fight or flight, you're not operating on optimal brain capacity. You're not going to be effective as a leader, as a person, as a spouse, as a significant other, as a parent. It's as simple as that. So that's the important part. Once again, it's not just a phrase. Stay calm, be cool, be rational. It's— there's science behind that, and you're not going to be as effective as a human being You're not going to grow as a human being if we are not able to solve problems, see clearly, and think clearly, especially during times of adversity. I'm going to put— state two quotes I use often that ties to this as well too. Only in quiet waters things mirror themselves undistorted. Only in quiet mind is an adequate perception of the world. So if I'm not thinking clearly, I'm not going to see things as they really are. I'm not going to be able to problems effectively. I'm not going to be able to see options and see ways out of a situation. I'm not— opportunities, opportunities. Exactly. If I'm, if I'm shut down or I'm angry, I'm going to miss those opportunities.

Right.

So that's the key. Another quote by Viktor Frankl states that between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space, our power to choose our response is our, is our power to choose a response. In our response lies growth and freedom. So once again, when adverse situation happens or conflict happens, we've got to prevent that transfer of authority from that rational part of our brain to the emotional part of the brain, because we're not— we're, during that short time to make a decision, when we're not thinking rationally, a lot of bad things can happen. Bad decisions. We're going to say the wrong things that we may a decision we may regret later, or something stated we're going to regret later as well.

So that's— well, and I think too, what I'm kind of picking up on is, because I really haven't thought about it as brain science as much as emotional intelligence, um, you know, just self-awareness, because that's what you're saying is if you can really kind of get educated and learn about how your brain works and how it's wired, have that self-knowledge and that self-awareness, know what triggers, you know, you are, you know, set you off in good, bad, or indifferent ways, then you'd be able to then have a better chance at managing it more effectively. Is that really, if they looked at brain science in that way?

That's correct. I will state that I've been certified in DiSC a long time. I knew my DiSC score for years. It wasn't until I was able to connect the dots, and by the way, I learned about this brain functionality through— I do kickboxing, martial arts, and I learned about this brain functionality from one of my kickboxing instructors. It wasn't until I understood that part and tied it to my DiSC style that helped me really become self-aware of why I do things under certain situations that are not productive. So that knowledge of my DISC style and how— what are those things that trigger me into that— not that emotional limbic state— how I respond and how non-productive it is, that actually raised my emotional intelligence. Because now I was better able to understand why I do what I do, right, and manage through that.

Yep.

So as a high S, I don't like quick change. I need time to think. I don't like to be forced to make a quick decision. I like, once again, time to think that through. But that's not how life works.

Yeah. Yes.

Pandemic hit.

Yeah.

What am I going to do about that? So knowledge that something like that could set me in that limbic state, and my limbic state is to freeze and fight, right? Or become aware of things I needed to do to prevent that transfer of authority from the cortex to the limbic. So that brain functionality in my DiSC style raised my emotional intelligence. It grew my intrapersonal skills and helped me understand myself better, which in turn helps me understand my dealings with others.

Absolutely.

I'm in that emotional freeze-fighter— that's freeze and fight state. I'm not going to be effective with others. I may snap at someone. I may snap at a significant other. I may snap at a colleague, that's not productive. So brain functionality and DISC has raised my emotional intelligence.

That's awesome. That's so— okay, so what is one tip, what is one tip you would give anyone listening right now that they should be doing if they are dealing with, you know, being in their head and dealing with the internal turmoil, let alone everything else going around them? What would you tell them to do?

I'll try to connect to— I'm going out of the box here, but one is look at your perception of adversity. Look at it as it's a part of life. Even a pandemic, unfortunately, is a part of life.

Yeah.

Why did it hit me now? Why is this happening? Isn't going to be helpful, right? So accept that adversity is going to happen and acknowledge it's a chance for me to grow, transform, and evolve. That's placed in our life for a reason. And the second part of that, once again, is to prevent the transfer of authority from my rational brain to my limbic brain. Yes. So, so those two together, I think, encompass the real takeaway. What's your perception of adversity? And remain— maintain a calm, cool head during it. And then you're going to be able to solve problems, find solutions, minimize conflict, make wise decisions. And see those options. Think creatively.

Awesome, awesome. I'm gonna add a third for everybody. Well, actually, I'm gonna add a third and a fourth for everybody. One is I want you to go out and get his book. I want you to go out and get his book, In Defense of Adversity. Why do I keep moving it? In Defense of Adversity: Turning Your Toughest Challenges into Your Greatest Success. Success. So that's your third tip, is to pick up that book and, and even leverage it not only for yourself but even for your team and your, and your company as a whole. Suggest that they share it, suggest to buy it, make sure the leaders are also really understanding adversity, especially in this, this time, because they not only are they dealing with it but their whole entire team is dealing with it. Okay, so that's tip number 3. Tip number 4 would be to go to gavatorta.com and learn all about Steve, all about his work, all about his other book, all about his coaching and how he can help you and help even your team and your company as a whole. So those are your additional tips. Now I want to add that Steve, don't you have a little, what I'll call a gift, but don't you have something that you, um, uh, can provide our listeners should they be interested in a more immediate need to read up on your book?

Sure. I was going to say, if you're interested, uh, if on your website or however you want to deliver that, I would offer an ebook, e-version of my book gratis for you. So you decide how they can get that, Bernadette, but I offer that Number 1, I'm going to give 2 gifts: the free e-version of my book, In Defense of Adversity, and then 2, as I said, I interviewed over 60 highly successful leaders across 5 core questions. There was so much good content, I couldn't put it all in the book. I have a PDF file about that thick of just nuggets. When I did these interview surveys, I had no idea what I was in for. These people put their heart and soul into this. So I'm willing to supply that PDF file to you and have your viewers access that PDF file that is completely filled with nuggets. Uh, it lists out each question and underneath there are bullet points of those, uh, people responding to the questions. Yeah, for those of you looking tips or how to prepare or how to deal with or adversity. It's all in this. Again, successful businessmen and women, entrepreneurs, professional athletes, professional and amateur coaches, yoga instructors. We really had a broad array of people we interviewed and surveyed, and that PDF file is just filled with just a ton of nuggets. And it's crazy to sit there and not be used. So I'm going to provide that to you. You can provide that to your listeners.

Absolutely. As a matter of fact, we will be sure that we will be sure that by the time— by the end of this day, we will have both of those things and this whole broadcast out on sheddingthebitch.com. Go to sheddingthebitch.com/radiopodcast and we'll provide you the links and the content to get access to. That's awesome. And definitely everyone take advantage of it because we could all use some, you know, some especially from other leaders, other successful people, how they've learned to deal with it or how they currently deal with it. It just gives you some ammunition, some tips, some tools, some strategies that you could be using in your business. That's awesome. But I do want everybody to go to gavatorta.com and let me spell that for you. It's g-a-v-a-t-o-r-t-a.com and learn more about Steve as well and the work that he does. Steve, thank you so much. This has been awesome.

Thank you.

It was my pleasure. I hope it helped. And, uh, I'm passionate about this topic, number one. Number two, especially during this, this, uh, time we're going through.

Yes, absolutely, absolutely. And everyone, you know, please just take advantage of, you know, looking him up on gavittorta.com, you know, taking advantage of his book, um, purchase it and/or the PDF that we will post to sheddingthebitch.com, and along with that other PDF of tips and lessons from successful people dealing with adversity. Great. I appreciate you being here, Steve. Thank you so much. And for everyone, we'll be back next Tuesday at noon Eastern time for another episode of sheddingthebitch.com. So I'll look forward to having you there. Take care, everybody. Have a great day.

Thank you for listening to Shedding the Bitch Radio with Bernadette Boas. Join Bernadette every Tuesday at noon Eastern as she helps you shift your bitches to riches. And the dialogue is always going on at sheddingthebitch.com. See you next week.