Turn Stress Pressure into Power: 3 Key Questions

This is episode 309 of the Empowered Team Podcast. Welcome to the Empowered Team Podcast where we unlock the secrets of self mastery for leaders who want to elevate their impact in both leadership and life. Your journey to being your best so you can give your best starts here and now, your host, executive coach and life strategist, Kari Schneider.

Welcome.

Welcome to the Empowered Team Podcast. I am so excited to be with.

You today because I'm going to give you the three main questions to help guide your thinking in the most stressful situations. This month on the Empowered Team and our group mastermind. We have been going into that topic of stress because it's in everybody's lives in some form or another. So we're going to support you today not only in just mastering stress, but turning this pressure into power. How are we going to do that with these three main questions. Questions. So before we go into that, I'm going to give you a little more information about stress because it's so pervasive in our lives that I think that we just get used to it. Meaning it's normal to feel this stressed or it's normal to have these setbacks day in and day out. But really there's some roots to stress and there's some serious impacts to stress. So we'll start with that so that you really have this understanding. And then I'm going to tell you something that happened with my family and it was so stressful this summer that I can't help but use it as an example of stress. So first of all, we've got a number of routes to stress. There's this biological route. This is literally our survival, our evolutionary basis, our fight or flight. Something startles us, we get stressed. We want to assess whether it's a physical threat. So there's this biological route and then we have a psychological route. This is our cognitive appraisal. How do we perceive stress? This really is this difference between do we have a mismatch of expectation of what is coming at us and whether or not we can handle it? That's this psychological route. And then we've got all these social and environmental factors we've got which are external environment. We've got our internal factors like our own mindset, our predisposed thinking patterns that we've been taught. And then we've got this chronic stress or feedback loop where one thing stresses another and the body remains in this stressful state and it just keeps functioning on this stress and we kind of perpetuate it with more and more action. That's either not solving the stress or fueling more stress in our lives. So it's, it's a real pervasive thing for all of us, especially in this day and age when there's more coming at us than ever before. Between technology, between lifestyle demands, between family and people working more, all kinds of things, the stress doesn't go away. It's part of the human condition. However, we can manage it more by managing our minds, we can manage the stress. Stress doesn't have to be a negative thing. It can be an amazingly positive thing. But before we go into eustress that positive side of stress, I want you to understand some of the things that really have impacts. And there are impacts on relationships, relationships impacts on leadership, impacts on our body, on our health. Those are the three main impacts I want to focus on what happens in relationships when we're stressed and we're talking about these byproducts of stress. There's elevated cortisol levels, there's insomnia, sleep disturbances, we get rapid breathing, tensed muscles, dilated pupils. These are all physical responses to stress. And there's more than that. Our digestion can be suppressed. Our immune system can be either be o turned up, dialed up or turned down, not functioning optimally. There's so many things. So in relationships specifically when we're in this stressful state, we end up tending to have an emotional withdrawal. We tend to have inc. Increased conflict, we have decreased. And then when it comes to our leadership and the relationships we have in leadership, we have reduced emotional intelligence. Oh, that's something we need massively in this day and age. We have decision paralysis. We're not able to make the decisions that we to and we tend to fall back into autocratic tendencies instead of really being collaborative within our groups or our teams. The impacts on decision making specifically is that we have a focus instead of being able to take everything in. We also tend to be more risk averse when we're stressed out and we have cognitive decline. Uhhuh. You're not so smart when you're stressed. You're not thinking as clearly when you're stressed. When it comes to health, the World Health Organization has literally been declaring stress as one of the major causes or contributors that worsens disease. So we're looking at 80% of diseases nowadays are either caused by stressed stress or worsened by stress. That's amazing. That's what it's causing in our lives. But it doesn't have to be this way. And it starts with us. It literally starts with us. So not only our physical health, chronic stress, cardiovascular diseases, metabolic disorders, weakened immune systems. Mental health contributes to anxiety, depression, burnout, sleep disorders, disrupting sleep patterns, insomnia, further exacerbating more health issues. It goes on and on. So let's just dive into my story so you can kind of feel my stress here for a second, but all also feel the outcomes of this situation. This summer we went on an epic family vacation. We were so excited about it because we've been planning it for ages and it meant coordinating our whole family. There were eight of us traveling, our five kids. So Paul and I were traveling with our youngest and then our older four were coming from various places. And one of them had a boyfriend coming as well. So we had two coming from bc, one coming from Ottawa, two are coming from London, Ontario. We're all. We're coming from Winnipeg. We're all meeting in Toronto to catch this flight to Iceland. But we were really proactive in planning. Great timing. We figured we had everything all set, looking awesome. And what happens? Our flight, mine and Paul's and our youngest, Maeve. Our flight was delayed and delayed again and delayed again. I'm telling you, this flight from Winnipeg was delayed for every reason in the book. At first it was due to a disruption with a passenger. We had no idea what happened there. Then it was due to mechanical issues, Then it was due to staffing issues. And then came the weather, literally. The Toronto airport was closed down and was not receiving flights. Our flight was delayed by over five hours. Now we're still not worried. Why? Because we have plenty of time. We were getting on a flight midday and our flight to Iceland didn't take off until 11pm no problem. Who's going to worry about that? All of our other kids had made it into Toronto, so we knew they were all there. But it was our flight from Winnipeg getting into Toronto still wasn't leaving. Finally, that flight left. They changed staff because it was delayed so long. It took a delay to get off the ground because the timing was all off. And finally we were in the air. And we're actually getting to the Toronto Airport and we're cutting it close. We're talking. We're going to be within probably 15 or 20 minutes of the flight. We're supposed to take off to Iceland. We've been planning this trip for a year. We've been, you know, obsessing over it, we've been saving for it, all these things. But the thing about Iceland is that we're going to a different country, different currency, and our five kids that are ahead of us. And on that flight, they're literally sitting on the flight. We aren't there yet. We finally land. That flight's supposed to take off and we have our older kids. Paul is texting them and saying, hey, tell them I'm doing nothing. Because I see that he's already taking action. I'm sitting right next to him. He's having the kids tell the flight attendants that, hey, like, we're coming, our flight is landing. We're in a gate in the same. In the same area. So please don't take off. Turns out we land. We're not too far away from them. It looks like we're going to make it. We're being reassured that it's going to be okay. And we go to our gate and they turn the plane around because they don't have a gate for us. And we are crushed by this point. It's 20 minutes past departure time for Iceland. It's then 30 minutes past departure time for Iceland. Not only that, we are supposed to get new boarding passports passes because they wouldn't issue them for us. And we're supposed to go through security again. So we basically are in a point where it should be a point of no return. We don't think it's going to be viable. And Paul, my husband, is not a man who does well when he can't take action. And we're stuck on the plane. So he's trying to take as much action as he can. He's starting to type out text of what to do if we can't get on the plane. And then he deletes it. And then he starts to type and then he makes a comment, kind of a sark sarcastic thing like, oh, we're gonna end up missing it because of blah, blah, blah. And I sat there and I thought, what can I do right now? And I couldn't do much, but I could stay calm and I could just say, no, we're gonna do everything we can. Don't worry about it. Right now. There's nothing we could do. We sat on that plane and finally, after two more attempts at getting a gate, this plane was literally you turning around trying to get into a gate. They pulled into our gate and we go. And this woman, bless her, in front of us, we had been entertaining her babies who were in front of us for most of this flight. She hollers, let these people through. They're trying to catch a fight. And we literally go to the front of the plane. We're the first ones about to get off. And someone makes a comment, well, we have to make a connection, too. Yet there we were at the front of the plane, me and Paul and Maeve, and we go to get off. They open the doors and this man blocks us. And Paul says, can we please move through? And he says, no. And he lists off at least 15 flights for the people who are on this flight that they have been not able to make and that they have to go to a certain gate to reschedule their flights. And guess what? Our flight was on there. Oh, my heart sunk. But the three of us just looked at each other. We knew we were making an effort to run to the gate to hope that our plane was still there. And at this point, we didn't know if it had taken off. And so we blitzed by him, but we were so fast, the doors were still closed up the ramp, so they had to open doors for us. We're sprinting through the airport to try and get to the gate, which is just down this particular gate. We're probably, I don't know, probably 10 gates away. We're sprinting along. Maeve's out in front. She goes the wrong direction. I'm yelling her to go back the other direction. Direction. We're at C36. I'm hollering at her, and it's empty. There's no one there. And I see this woman walking away. The doors are closed. There's no one there. I'm like, hey, hey, wait, Wait, please. She goes walking back, and she says, hang on. And she starts typing furiously in the computer, trying and trying and trying and getting us boarding passes. She prints off three boarding passes. She unlocks the door. I have goosebumps thinking about her. Like, please. We're running down the ramp towards the plane. As they're about to close the door on the plane, we're saying, wait, wait. They stopped from closing the door to the plane. We get on that plane, and we're expecting. In some ways, because this was so frantic for so long and so tense, we're literally expecting a standing ovation on the plane, but the rest of the plane's not too pleased that they've been sitting there waiting for our butts to get on that plane. But there were our five family members waiting for us and literally cheering for us and smiles. And we made it because we knew. We knew that if they had gone and we hadn't got there, they weren't old enough to take the rental cars. They couldn't go and check in, therefore, they couldn't do the two hour drive to our Airbnb and check into the Airbnb. That meant we would have had to get a hotel somewhere for them, somewhere near the airport. It was going to be a real challenge if we didn't make that flight. However, those things were in the back of our minds. But we made it and we were so excited to be there. And the thing about it was, after all the relief, after the tension, after the unknown and the stress and the panic and the sweating and the sprinting and all of the things, we were finally there and we were able to laugh about it, we were able to tell stories about it, we were able to share to them what happened and them recall back to us what happened because they were doing things on their end, we were doing things on our end. But how are we going to control a plane taking off? So here's the thing about this. I'm going to circle back to the story, but there's a difference between distress and Eustress. If it were like a spectrum and distress was on one end and eustress was on the other end, and we're kind of hanging out in this zone of stress, that's closer to distress than eustress. That's what's going on in our lives. Too often we can manage it with our own thinking, especially with the questions we ask ourselves when we're in the stressful situations. So I'm going to review this for you. Distress, here's the definition, is the harmful, overwhelming form of stress that makes you feel stuck, feel anxious, feel paralyzed, sometimes feel overwhelmed. It often feels like there's too much to handle and leads to a drop in performance because we are feeling that what we're seeing, what's around us, what we're experiencing is more than we can handle. It leads to. These are the signs we're going to feel. We're going to sing thoughts or experience racing thoughts, feel muscle tension and feel overwhelmed. In contrast, eustress is at the opposite end of the spectrum. In this one, we're literally experiencing the positive form of stress. We're really excited about a vacation, maybe a family member is getting married, but it's causing this, energizing, this motivating energy in our bodies. It arises when we face challenges that we believe we can manage, we can overcome. We're actually excited to manage these challenges and overcome them, but it leads to growth, it leads to achievement. Eustress helps us improve focus, improve performance and even creativity. So this is the interesting thing about stress. So in this environment where we're trying to catch the plane. I was stressed, Paul was stressed. Maeve didn't know what was going on. I guarantee she was stressed from our stress. But we have this zone where we can actually change the experience of stress by how we're thinking. So what we want to do is literally transform our feeling of stress or something that's getting close to distress and turn it into eustress. And all it is is this perception. It's this key perception of believing that whatever we're experiencing we can handle. It's not more than what we can handle. And we have to draw from either past experiences or if it's in a scenario where we have never experienced it before, we're going to have to draw from ourselves, draw from what we can control, draw from what we know about ourselves so that we can go into the perception of, well, I'll control what I can. And that's exactly what I did on that airplane. I was cool as a cucumber. And I know if it was three years ago, I probably would have been tapping my hands and super tense and. And leaving that stress with others around me, because I'd be using my body language to show that I was stressed, but I wasn't. I was calm, I was cool. And the reason I was is because I knew that the outcome was something that I couldn't control. But there were certain things I could control. How I managed my thoughts, how I responded to everything that was happening and the choices I was making in the moment. So here's what I would like you to explore these three key questions in a time of stress, even if it's eustress, because sometimes when we're in eustress, it's draining our energy because we're so excited. We're doing so much, trying to go for the thing, believing that we can manage it all. So sometimes that can be draining in our energy when we are in that state for too long. So the first question is this. What type of stress am I experiencing right now? That's the first question. Am I in a space of eustress? Am I in a space of mild stress? Am I in a space of distress? What's happening for me right now? When you can identify that, then you can guide yourself as to how to manage the situation. So that's question number one. What type of stress am I experiencing right now? Because the distress can be overwhelming and actually harmful to our physical physicality, our health. Whereas the EU stress can be very energy energizing and motivating. However, too much of that can be problematic. So signs of the distress include what I've mentioned before, that racing heartbeat, that tense body, the racing thoughts as well. Then we want to go through the second question. If this is distress, what can I focus on to make it more neutral? So for instance, in the airplane what I was focusing on is what was going to happen next. The next thing was to get out of this airplane. The next thing was to we needed to get our carry ons. We were only traveling with carry on. So getting our carry ons moving to the front because this woman literally cleared the path for us. And then once we're at the front, get it was just the next step. What's the next thing we have to do to try and get to that gate? What's the next thing we have to do? Because I already had decided, I decided that it didn't matter about making plans for that night. We'd have plenty of time to do that if we missed the flight. Right now the only action was to try to get to that flight, try and get to that gate. That was it. So that helped me stay focused and calm and cool. Instead of being frenzied on in the wh ifs and being upset if someone couldn't get out of our way or wanted to list off all the canceled flights, I wasn't interested in being upset about that. I was staying cool. So if it's distress, what can I focus on to make it more neutral? By focusing on just the next step step and keeping it only the next step within what I could control, not anything that I couldn't control that helped it be very, very neutral for me. I was not upset, I was not excited. I was in the zone of next step next step. Next step. If it's eustress, there's a different question for question number two and it's this. How can I support myself and the situation to sustain my energy? Because if you're in eustress for too long, that can be very draining as well. It's too much of the go, go, go even if you're really excited. So this ends up thinking about what you will main use to maintain that energy momentum. It might be taking breaks. It's like, oh, I'm going to keep going. I'm so excited about this. I better take a break at this point so I can maintain my energy, maintain my focus or even seeking support, looking for someone else so that you're not continually doing it all yourself because you're so bloody excited about it. And then exhausted, not able to continue On. So those are for question number two. Once you've determined whether it's eustress or distress from question number one, question number two just has you focus on, if it's distress, what can I focus on to make it more neutral? If it's eustress, how can I support myself and the situation to sustain this energy that's positive? And then the third question is this. What is the best thing to focus on right now? Now you heard what I chose to focus on, and I chose to focus on what's my next step? What's my next step in order to get to the gate? What is my next step? That's what I chose to focus on. So the question for you is, what can I choose to focus on that's within my control that enables you to manage the stress and stay more neutral? Because as soon as we start to focus on things that we don't control, that's going to elevate the stress. What we want to do is focus on the things we can control so that we stay in that neutral zone, or more towards the positive side of stress, the eustress. And that's the situation that I was in on that airplane. Now, it turned into a positive result. The outcome may not have been so positive, but then you're going to go back to these same questions. If the outcome was something that wasn't so positive and could stress you out, it's the same thing. What am I experiencing right now? Is this eustress or distress? And one of the key things that can help in that first question is identifying whether you're safe. If you just boil it down to I, am I safe? And if you're safe, then it's okay, well, what level of stress am I? I'm a little bit stressed or I'm very distressed. But wait a second, I'm actually physically safe. So does this need to be distress? No, I guess it doesn't. This is just my body's automatic and my brain's automatic response. But what stress am I experiencing right now? I'm actually safe, even though my brain is telling me to distress. And it's actually catastrophizing the situation. So to your brain and body, it's screaming at you, Unsafe. Unsafe. So in that first question, what type of stress am I experiencing right now? And if you went into distress, you can ask a second question, am I safe? Because chances are you are safe most of the time, 95% of the time, you are safe. And when you identify that, it can immediately take you towards the neutral more so right there. How can I focus? What can I focus on right now to make it more neutral? It can be as simple as I am safe. And then we can go towards, what can I control? What am I excited about in this? What can I do next? And then you're going towards that eustress. Because that's what I was feeling when we're sprinting through the airport. I'm like, oh, just get to the gate, get to the gate. Hope gate is empty. There's the woman. Okay, flag down the woman. Next action, Next action. Next step. Whatever was there, not yelling at her, not being angry with her or telling our situation. Just, can you get us in there? What can happen? Our kids are on that flight. And away she went. So many other people outside of our control contributed to us having a great outcome. However, it could have gone the other way and still we would have been safe and our kids would have been safe. So we could have just started from that platform right there. And then what can I focus on to make it more neutral? How can I support myself in the situation to sustain my energy? What is the best thing to focus on? Right, Those three questions, Those three things will help you through any stressful situation, I promise you. And if you are in such a frenzy that you can't think of those three questions, of what stress am I experiencing right now? What can I focus on to make it more neutral or support myself in this situation? And what is the best thing to focus on if you can't think of those three questions? Boil it down to the simplest thing. Am I safe? Yeah, I'm safe. I am. Here I go. So what I'd like to invite you here to do is not allow perpetual chronic stress, but rather to open yourself to the power of knowing that, Wait a second. If I manage my own thinking, all it's going to come down to is a perception shift. A perception shift of, can I handle what's happening right now? Yes, I can, because I can handle controlling my own thoughts and controlling my own actions. That's the perception shift in order to manage the stress and literally turn that pressure into your own personal power. That's where it lies right there. So start using these three questions. Empower yourself, empower your thinking, and by all means, share this with a friend to empower them. Have a great rest of your day and have a phenomenal week.

If you enjoy listening to the Empowered Team podcast, you'll love being on the Empowered Team. The Empowered Team is our group coaching and accountability program where we provide the tools, skills and community for you to grow your self mastery as a leader and optimize your results alongside other leaders. The Empowered Team runs year round. To learn more about our leadership consulting for business and our Empowered Team Group coaching, head to www.theempowered.ca empowered learn-more. That's www.theempowered.ca. empowered learn more. We can't wait for you to join us.

Let's go.