Managing Stress, Navigating Disappointment And Increasing Your Bank Balance

Welcome to the Practice Profit System podcast. Do you own a cash-based practice? Are you looking to start one? Tired of working endless hours and still not making enough money? Want to fire your insurance company? Then you're gonna love our podcast. Each episode is full of insights and proven strategies to grow your practice to 7 figures and more, allowing you to take more time off, make more money, and no longer have to take insurance reimbursements. Plus, get a free copy of my book, The Anatomy of a 7-Figure Medical Medical Practice, where I detail my entire journey to creating my own 7-figure practice. Just go to www.srpmedicalmarketing.com/book. You just pay $7.95 in shipping and handling, and you'll also get over $1,197 in free bonuses. That's www.srpmedicalmarketing.com/book. Now on to our show. Well, hello everybody. This is Matthew Gallogly with the Practice Profit System, helping doctors break free of the shackles of insurance. And we got a really cool interview for you all today here on the podcast. We have Terlise Radu. Did I get that correct?

Radu.

Radu. I was thinking go. That's right, it's go, just like my time in Louisiana. You know, she's— she's not a doctor, but— and she doesn't own a practice, but we're going to talk a lot today about stress, anxiety, and how they are related to the lack of money that you have in your bank account. For the record, this is actually the first time that Tarlese and I have ever talked. We just have known each other on social media for like the last 18 months. I feel like I'm finally connecting with a long-lost friend.

I love it.

Yeah. So, all right, Tarlese, you've got a really interesting backstory. You were born into a very wealthy family. You've had no struggles in your life. No, I'm kidding. You are the quintessential American success story, right? You have you've come from a pretty challenged, I guess you'd call it background, pretty challenged environment. You've been pretty open about that. I want to give people a little bit of context, because I think this really paints the right picture of why you're such an expert at what we're going to unpack today. So tell our listeners and our viewers just a little bit about your background and how that's kind of shaped you.

Yeah, absolutely. So it's interesting, I never like to focus on the negative things that have happened to me in my life. But I really have had some crazy negative things happen to me. You know, my mom took her own life, she She took her own life when I was 20. And so I had to figure out life on my own. That was a lot of struggle on its own. But, you know, I've been in a near-death car accident where I had to be cut out of the car, had to go to rehab, kind of learn how to become functioning again, if you will. I've been in the hospital with a tumor in my eye and had to get radiation. I went through a flash flood in my home where both of my cars were underwater. Our house was destroyed. I had black mold. I had a fire. I mean, all of these things that one of those things alone, you'd be like, that's pretty stressful. And so I've just learned as I've gone through each of these, you know, I've kind of built this muscle, if you will. And I decided about 5 years ago to go get a certification as a stress management coach. I was like, what will it hurt? Let me learn some of these stress techniques. But what I realized is it is the center of my business now. You know, I, I do teach people how to make money and I teach, you know, entrepreneurial traits and I talk about health and wellness, but I've realized that stress is something that It doesn't matter your color, it doesn't matter how much money you make, it doesn't matter your family background, we all have stress around something. And so if I can help people alleviate that, not only from being in the field and having it myself, but also having the training behind it, then I feel that that's kind of my mission moving forward.

Very cool. So, um, well, let's, let's talk a little bit about that. Let's talk about the impact of stress. We've all had stressful moments in our lives. What does stress do to the body? What goes on when the body is under stress?

So it's, it's really interesting because it can— we were talking about this right before we got on, but people don't realize that stress affects so many areas. And I'll go through them in just a sec. But a lot of— I was talking on a podcast last week and I said a lot of the symptoms that people have for other ailments and a lot of things that they go to the hospital for, they've realized are stress. And I had 2 different friends this week go because one One thought they were having a heart attack. The other one didn't know what was going on. And the doctor, both of the doctors were like, you're stressed out. You need to relax a little bit. And so when you constantly have, you know, your nervous system is like at war with itself, it feels like, and you're in fight or flight, there are these symptoms that, am I having a heart attack? Am I having an anxiety attack? What's going on? And it causes lack of sleep, changes in appetite. You know, when you're losing sleep, you're, you're it's not psychosis, but you're feeling just weird and out there and like not remembering things. Your memory can, you know, go because of stress. There's so many things physical to mental, and then that starts affecting your relationships, that starts affecting your business. And so it's like this snowball that happens that, you know, your fight or flight causes you to scream at your kid, or then you're feeling sick and so you're not sleeping. And so it's all this storm of things that start happening at the same time, and it's really because We're not stretching, we're not breathing, we're not getting those emotions out. They're staying trapped. And believe it or not, I mean, you— I think that you'd believe the same thing, but mentally you can create ailments in yourself and you can create things. Oh, totally. Yeah. Yeah. I'm like, some people are like, I don't believe that. But I'm like, I believe that—

The gray hairs earn, Charlize. It's, it's, it's clearly earned.

But I do believe, I do believe that you can manifest this into your, your physical form when you're constantly thinking about things. And so a lot of the things that we focus on is getting to the root and identifying why this is coming up. A lot of times we'll realize the stress that we're feeling, it's happening over and over. It's not like it's something that's coming out of nowhere. The thing is that we continue to push it down. We continue to ignore it. We continue to push through and it's still there. It's, it's not going away. And so it begins to snowball and then one thing sets you off and next thing you know, you're screaming at people, you know, you're, you're drinking or you're over-consuming. consuming. And especially during this time, we're going into the holidays as of the time that we're recording this, a lot of people start overindulging in alcohol and sugar, and they're spiking their blood sugar levels and their body's not used to it.

Right.

And those are some of the same symptoms that you get when you're feeling stressed. And so people are feeling anxious and they're feeling stressed out and they're feeling weird, and it's really just from the sugar. And so people will come to me and say, I'm so stressed. You don't understand. This time of the year is so bad. And then I dive into their diet. And I'm like, well, no wonder, no wonder, you know.

Well, I gotta work because my birthday's in November. Yeah, I've got my birthday in November, then I got Thanksgiving, then I've got Christmas. It's like, you know, I just know I'm gonna add 5 pounds during this season. It's brutal.

Yeah, absolutely.

And my doctors are gonna love hearing this because, you know, clearly they work with— in the anti-aging space, a lot of my functional medicine doctors, they're working with them saying, hey, we need to get you— break you from the sugar and the carbs. But, you know, the challenge they have is the patient sticking with it.

Absolutely.

So when you go through these changes, does that add more stress, psychological stress, to the body? And if so, how do you manage that?

So the interesting thing about psychological stress, I feel, is I think that we don't give ourselves enough credit to how much we can actually alleviate on our own. You know, some doctors believe in medicine, some don't. I'm not here to say if you should take something external or not, but I do believe that if we can get ourselves into a state of thinking, I always say live in the end. I'm not sure if you're familiar with Neville Goddard, but if you can really think of where do you want to be, what are you expecting from this, and what's the end goal, it takes some of the stress out of it and you realize that you truly are in control. And when my mom passed away, I went to a therapist and I also went to, you know, some people that taught me meditation. And one thing that I learned when I was learning meditation is he said, Okay, this week we're gonna focus on you know this type of meditation. I was expecting all this stuff. He had me focus on three breaths. I would go there and he I would take three breaths with this man, and I was like, I can't believe I'm paying this person. But he would have me focus on three breaths and getting centered and really focusing on being in the present moment. And I was you know I thought it was such bullcrap. I was like, this is by the way you can swear on this podcast.

My clients are used to me swearing.

Okay, this is I was like, this is bullshit.

I was like, this.

You know, this is crazy. But what I realized is a lot of the anxiety and a lot of the stress that comes, it's from thinking about things that have not yet happened or focusing on the things in the past that we quite frankly can't change or control. And so what he showed me with just getting centered and really focusing and being present with those 3 breaths is in this moment, we're usually okay. Like 9 times out of 10, the drama isn't happening in that exact moment. And if it is happening in that moment, Don't listen to me, run and like go get help. You know what I mean? But when you can really just get centered, it's so funny because people say, what do you do? Tell me the things, give me the journal, give me the tips. And I'm like, how about you just sit with yourself for a few minutes? Let's start there. And you'd be amazed at how difficult it is for some people to just sit with themselves.

Oh yeah, I'm horrible at meditating and I've been trying to do it for 20 years, but I have my own ways. of calming myself down, right? I can't— for me to like close my eyes, my ADD squirrel brain starts going off in a thousand different directions, right? So for me, it's walking. Like, it's leaving the phone behind, going for a walk, or, you know, just maybe even going for a drive. Those are for me going to play a round of golf or hit golf balls. Like, those are my forms of quote-unquote meditation, right, of calming things down. So—

And, you know, I— one of my clients, a person that I do work with, she is a nurse in the emergency room, and I gave her solfeggio frequencies to listen to. They're similar to binaural beats, just putting you in a different frequency. You listen to them, and it's like the music you would listen to in a spa. But it's interesting because she said, you know, I just felt so calm. I just felt like I was transported to somewhere else. And, and I said, isn't that interesting when you can take yourself out of all this conscious mind chatter, the thing, you know, the to-do lists and the stuff you have to do, and you can just be there for a moment, not listening to any words happening and just kind of be there. That really does help so much. And meditation— I don't do meditation with my eyes closed. I focus on a couple breaths, look right in front of me, and that's the way I do it. So I feel you. It's like, I don't need all this woo-woo stuff. What do I got to do for— so my body feels it like right now? But you'd be amazed at what just getting present can do. It's phenomenal. This stuff, it does directly correlate to how they're, how they're acting in their relationships and how they're showing up for other people, the amount of money that they're making in their bank account. I mean, time after time after time, I have pages of testimonials of people saying, I thought I wanted to work with you to make money. I thought I wanted to work with you to get my name out there, and my relationships are better. Or like, I'm sleeping at night finally. I don't know what kind of magic you're doing, but this is really not what I thought it was. And that's the fun part to me is because we think things have to be cookie cutter in one way. And it's like, if you can just sit for a few moments and be able to come to terms with what it is that's actually stressing you out, if you know what it is, we can fix it.

What happens when— yeah, oh, totally, completely. Like, I will say the, um, you know, I'm 54, right? So I have a 23-year-old son who's in an entrepreneurial startup, and they're in the middle of raising $100 million for like a Bitcoin mining thing. Yeah, I, I, you know, all I know is that The P&L statement looks good. But he was all stressed out and he's like, I don't know if this is going to work, and blah, blah, blah. And he goes, what do I do, Dad? And I said, go take a deep breath. I said, this is being an entrepreneur, doing this path that you've chosen, it's a lifestyle. So the sooner you learn how to manage the stress, like I wish I would've learned how to manage the stress earlier, it would've saved me a lot of— Anxiety, frustration. I probably would have made more money. I probably would have managed those situations a lot better. So this— my question to you is, when people are able to manage their stress, you just talked about it, like their relationships get better, their bank accounts get better. After working with people for 8 years, why do you think that is? Why is it that the brain and the body when it goes through this change of state, that it, it opens you up to more, to better success and better relationships. What is it like? What, what do you think it is that is happening to us? Or what do you think that's going on that to open up?

So it kind of, it kind of does go back to that fight or flight. Like, if you are constantly in a state of like you're tight and you're worried and you're rigid and you're just I don't know. I'm like, if you can't see me right now, I'm clamping my hands together. I'm just like, oh, when you just feel like you're wound up as tight as you can go. What happens when you start doing some of these? And, you know, I do have— side note— I do have an entire handout that I give people. I just call it a Stress Less Kit. I've been giving it to them forever, but it does have—

Oh yeah.

Some really cool specific breathing techniques, specific journaling and meditations and different varieties that people can get. So rather than going deep into it, if you do want that, I can make that available to you because it's just a tip that I give.

Yeah, sure.

I give a lot of people. It's great. But when you're constantly in a wound-up, stressed-out state, the change that I see the most is that people realize that they have a choice to not feel like that. Sometimes people have felt bad for so long that they don't realize why they feel bad. You know, have you ever had that uncle that's just like, oh, my knee, my knee, my knee. And you're like, Do you know why your knee even hurts? Like, where did this originate from?

Can't stand those people.

You know what I mean? But, but a lot of people are like that. It's like you've been doing the same thing for so long that you— or let's say like a diet, for instance. Someone, uh, I have a friend that says, oh, I don't, I don't eat gluten. And I said, well, okay, well, why? She's like, I just don't. My mom doesn't, my dad didn't, so I don't. And I was like, okay. But a lot of things we pick up because they were given to us through tradition, or our friends did it and we decided to do it. And so sometimes it's the The same thing with stress. I hate the Cowboys. Well, why do you hate the Cowboys?

That makes complete and total sense to hate the Cowboys. So we pick another one. No, I'm kidding.

I hate the Raiders.

And the Yankees and the Cubs. So just so we're really clear on that. All right.

But I know, I know we're laughing, but this is serious because like, it's like, I hate— but why? Why do you have that pent-up aggression for something? It's because, well, my grandpa didn't like them or my uncle doesn't like them. And so I use football as an example, but there are so many other areas that this, you know, goes along with. The way that people eat, the way that people respond and treat other people, the way that people show up in business, the way that people, you know, show up on social media. A lot of it is that we pick it up from other people. And so why I think that their brain, I mean, when they're focused on their brain, that their body and their business gets better is because When you can drop your shoulders and take a moment to realize, oh my goodness, I've been kind of fighting myself here. I'm actually in control. Like, take a deep breath. We got, you know, we have control of the situation. It gives you, it empowers you. It makes you feel better. You know, I worked with, I work with a dentist and he was constantly like, I just don't have time. I want to do this other stuff. It's so frustrating. I have an assistant, but then I have to train the assistant. He's And he just had all this stuff going on. I was like, what if we just took a day and you wrote down, we like brain dumped all of these frustrations.

Yeah.

And then we took these frustrations and we figured out a system. And then we took that system and we had a person that trained all these other people. He, I'll have to reach out and see how much time he got back. But he said, I pretty much got a week back in my schedule because I'm not having to do all these things. And so he kept this frustration going for years of, I'm never going to get to do what I want to do. This is so frustrating. If I'm not here, things don't get done. And he realized he was just trying to take on too much. And so once we were able to get that out, he was like, oh my gosh, I just slept for the first real night and I can't tell you how long. And I was like, of course you did, because you have this program running in your mind over and over. I liken it to, have you ever used a laptop and like the fan starts going and you can tell it's You can tell it's running too much. That's kind of what happens when you start putting your to-do list from day to day and you keep shifting it and, oh, I'll do it later, I'll do it later. All of that stuff, it stays in your mind. Like subconsciously it's there. It's not going away just because you erased it on your paper. And so what happens is your mental bandwidth, you just can't keep all of these things in there. You gotta get rid of them.

Right.

You gotta delegate essentially. And so one thing that I do with a lot of the high-powered people I work with or the people that have large teams or large families is let's see where we can delegate. Let's see where we can organize this so that we have systems in place, or where— let's see where we can say, you know what, that ship has sailed. We're not even doing that anymore. That's off the list.

Right.

Like, I'm done with it. Or what things have I been procrastinating on for a while that I just need to get done? Because it could probably take like 5 minutes, but it's been on my schedule forever. And if you can hit those 4 categories of delegation, putting in systems, something to completely get rid of, or something to just hit head-on, you'll realize you're— if you can control that box, you can control a lot of things in your life.

You touched on a few things that are straight from my playbook, if you will. One of them is that you have to give enough credit to yourself, right? Like, you— I think we're really— I think we're our biggest critics. But this, this other thing is that this choice. You know, we have choices, thousands of them a day, maybe 10,000 a day, to decide. You know, we— my longtime coach used to say, are you going to respond or are you going to react?

Hmm.

And if you respond, you're coming from a position of strength. If you react, right, we all have done this where we react and we say something or we tee off on somebody that we care about, right, for no apparent reason. But if you can learn to respond, which is that That taking a breath, that thoughtfulness. But I want to go to this other thing. Where do you want to be? And I find it fascinating. I say I love the human story. I love the human condition. I find it fascinating, again, knowing what I know about your story, some of the challenges that you've overcome. When you were in that, when you were in these places of your mom committing suicide, or how did you— it's easy now to say, oh, we've got to just picture a better future.

Yeah.

But how do you do that in the moment? Like when you, when this was happening to you when you were 21 years old, how did you get there? How did you say, okay, I'm going to focus on where I want to be versus where I am right now?

So I'm going to answer your question, but I'm going to pivot a little bit because then I just pushed. I didn't, I didn't address it at that time. I just, I always say I girl bossed, quote unquote, my way through it. I was like, I'm a strong woman, I'm gonna get it done. And now I realize, don't do do that. You gotta handle— you gotta face yourself first, you know. So, but I wanted to pivot to— I want to give an even sooner example. So one year ago, I went through a divorce and, um, also a business split up. But that happened, which was unexpected, just kind of happened one day. So I was going through a divorce and, you know, moving places and stuff. I was like, okay. And in the same few days later, my membership site all 4 of my websites that I'd had up for a decade, my team communication, everything went away. It was all gone. All of my passwords were gone. All of everything in my life literally disappeared. I had no access to my PayPal accounts. I had no access to everything. And in that moment, I just remember being like, what in the world? Like, I couldn't have gone in my mind to a more horrible place, honestly, because I felt like Like everything was gone. Like my family, my business, my communication with all of everyone, my passwords were gone. Like I literally had a bomb dropped on my life and started with, with nothing.

21-year-old girl boss. Actually, why I asked the question, 21-year-old girl bossing it, right? Yep. We're gonna manifest our own damn destiny. Yep. This happens 12 months ago. You're a completely different woman.

Right? Yep.

So tell us then, how'd you do it?

So I called my coach, I called my friends, and I rallied the troops essentially. I said, here's the situation, what can I launch? What would you, what would you think that my audience wants from me? How can I help people? What do you think people would be interested in? And I launched a course around overcoming adversity and gratitude. And I filled it. I, I did not have a website and I didn't have any way to take payments or anything. I put up an Evernote link and I sold, I sold, I think, 20 people like the first couple days. And, um, yeah, I sold it through an Evernote link because I didn't have anything.

Evernote link? I've been in this space for 20-plus years, never heard anybody selling it via an Evernote link. I've heard Google Docs, never heard Evernote link. That's brilliant.

I did. And you know why? Because it was in the moment. I was like, I'm going to teach people how to get through hard times because I'm going through it right now. I'm going to show them how to be grateful. I'm going to teach them how to get over stress and how to get through whatever you're going through, and we're going to do it together. And I was very honest in my, in my offer. I said, here's what we're doing, here's when it starts, I hope you join me. And people did. And so it's interesting, I still kind of pushed my way through it. But this time I asked for help. I was very honest about the situation I was in, and I didn't try to just push through it. I kind of, I allowed myself to feel it and process the emotion and not bottle it up. And I learned so much. You know, it's very interesting now because people come to me and they say, wow, I was watching you during that time.

Yeah.

And it's been very interesting to kind of see where you're at now. And I didn't know, but I just figured going to go through this, and I've been so open and honest with people about everything else great happening in my life, I'm going to let them know what's happening right now. And it wasn't pointing fingers at anyone. It wasn't the boohoo. It was just like, hey, if you're ever in a situation, what are you good at and how can you serve people? Okay, let's create a product from it. Let's build a new tribe or a new community. And that's exactly what I did. And I got the most amazing testimonials from it that just warmed my heart and people really resonated with it. And I think it's just because it was very transparent, but it was very needed because I was in my moment of need. But I realized everyone else in the group, they had their own stuff going on. Some, it was kids, some, it was finances or homes, or everyone had something. And so, we all kind of rose together and it was amazing. So, to answer your question, that's what I did.

Okay, perfect. Perfect. So how long from the moment of saying, okay, I've got to fix this problem, and you communicating with your, with your group, your coach, or your, and your friends, to sending out the Evernote link? How much time elapsed? Was it months?

Days? Oh, I— it was like maybe 2 days, a day, I think. Maybe. Yeah, it wasn't very long. I like got the plan.

You didn't run a spreadsheet? You didn't, you didn't overanalyze it. You didn't do like a business plan.

Well, so I spoke to my coach and she said, you need to just— what, like, what do people come and talk to you for? And it's very funny because I say the same thing with my clients, but it's like, what do people come to you for? What do people ask you advice for? Like, what are you— what do you feel that you could be of service to people for? And that's what I did. I was like, listen, I am really good at overcoming adversity. I am very good at masterminding and, and problem solving. Like, in my StrengthsFinder test, it's like, I am your girl to brainstorm stuff with because my mind doesn't work linearly. I'm, I'm pulling stuff from the ether at all points, you know? And, and that's why people like me. And so I figured, if I'm gonna get through this, I was always so sheltered in my other experiences and didn't really open up and say what was happening. And so I— my only, like, one rule in all of it was I'm not going to play the victim card in any of this because I'm not. It happened. And now I know I've— I learned a lot of business, you know.

Yep.

Lessons from it. I learned a lot of business lessons and I learned how I want to set up things for myself in the future. And so I think that was a positive. And I did not want to attract people that were in victimhood or in the victim mentality. I wanted people that were like, I'm not happy with my situation. It sucks right now, but I'm willing to do the work to get to where I want to because I deserve it. And those are the kind of people that I brought in, for sure.

Very, very cool. Very cool. I love that because, you know, taking that massive action, like, to me, the simplest, fastest, easiest way to get out of the rut is completely like take massive action, get out of your— get out of the state that you're in right then and there, because that state builds upon itself. So why you work with clearly Is it mostly entrepreneurs or do you have people that are kind of wannabe entrepreneurs or they're corporate people? What's your makeup of clients?

It is entrepreneur. It's really funny because you know how everyone's kind of focused on have a niche, have a niche. I was like, it's been very interesting because my niche is most often the people that don't— aren't the people that buy from me. You know, I have people that are like in military and work with military. I've, like I said, dentists and nurses. I have stay-at-home moms, people that have Etsy shops, network marketers, um, chiropractors. Like I have kind of all across the board that I've worked with. To me, my ideal client though is someone that is like, look, I'm a badass. I know what I'm good at. I just had a little bump along the way. You know, something happened, life has changed. I need someone to kind of be accountable to and help me kind of along this journey. I know what I'm capable of, but maybe they don't have the support right now of the people around them that believe the same thing. And so that's kind of what I'm there for. You know, it's interesting 'cause we were talking about if I work with men or women. And I was saying, I've recently launched a men's course. And the only reason I did that is because I was looking at my numbers and I said, man, I've worked with a lot more men than I have women. That's very interesting. But, you know, I used to be in the commercial finance field when I was, I was the only woman on a 13-man team. And I think that they liked that I do have that go, go, go attitude, that I do like to take things, take action immediately, that I, I do feel comfortable in these these multimillion-dollar deals because I was just being me. And, and if that was good enough, then okay, if not, someone else will work with me. And so I, I don't really have a niche as far as who I've worked with, because I was just looking through my, my previous clients. And I was like, they're all different. That's pretty cool.

Well, then why is it, why is it that people feel the need to try and go it alone? Why is it that our, for the most part, our default is when things get tough, we try to go it alone?

I think there's a sense of embarrassment or a, you know, it's difficult sometimes to ask for help or to say like that you need assistance or you're not where you want to be. Or a lot of people that I've worked with, they've had the ups and the downs. And so it's, it's a little bit difficult to go once you've been up. You know, I've personally, like, I've had my name on a Lamborghini registration. I've also had no money in my account at all. I understand both of them. I do. I understand both of them.

You know, I've been there. I've had cars repoed. I've had the sheriff show up at my house daily dropping off subpoenas and, you know, trying to, you know, letters. Yeah.

So I have, I have seen both sides, but what I've noticed is that they just say like, man, I didn't expect this, or this is not what I wanted, or, you know, they feel that they have a lot of people that look up to them or that they're responsible for or that they, you know, they feel that they owe things to. And so if we can kind of let go of the guilt And, you know, the worrying about the past. Hey, what do you want? That's fine. People, people are gonna talk regardless. What are we gonna focus on that's positive? And as woo-woo or as cheesy as that sounds, it works when you stop sitting in the shit and having a bad mindset and you actually start focusing on what you want. The people that show up to support you will blow your mind. I mean, the reason we're on this podcast was simply because I was like, I wanna talk to more people about stress management. Anyone want to have me on their podcast? That's all I did. Because I don't know, maybe someone will listen to this and get a lot of it. And maybe someone will say, hey, don't have that lady on again. I don't know.

Yeah, there's a— there's a chance it'll be both. But who cares, right? Like, it's— yeah, totally be good with it. Let's talk about tattoos.

Yes.

What's your tattoo? I mean, the one that you always post. You may have other tattoos. I'm not asking about those.

Yeah, you're like, it might have been a little bit.

Let's talk. So what is that tattoo?

So it is a 12:34 tattoo. And I'm glad you asked about it. Because since I've had it, almost every day that I'm in public or around people, someone says, what is that? And so it's really cool, because I have to— I get to have this conversation. So 15 years ago, almost, it's like in a couple months will be 15 years that I had an old school alarm clock, you know, the one with the red letters that we all had. And I would set an alarm. And at the beginning, I just picked 12:34 because it was in the middle of the day and it was easy. But I said, no matter what, every single day I'm going to stop and give gratitude. I'm going to say thank you for whatever it is that day. It doesn't matter. Non-negotiable. I can take 1 minute of my day to do this. And I did it and I did it and I did it. And I honestly don't think I've missed a day in 15 years. I don't believe I've ever missed a day. I was thinking, I was like, even when I'm traveling, even when I was sick. Yeah, I think I've done it. But the thing is that I used to have a jar and I kind of dumped out the little notes that I had in there every day. And there was just so many things that I realized I was grateful for. And as I've shared it online, now I have almost 200 testimonials from other people that have either got their own tattoo or tagged me, or they share it with their children, or now them and their wives do it, or coworkers. And so it is such an awesome, like, spiderweb of goodness that I've been able to see from it just because I've been consistent with it. And so it's really cool. Some guy messaged me not that long ago. He said, the funniest thing happened. I was just at a little conference and at 12:34, like 6 people's alarms went off and he said they all went off at the same time. And I was like, can I please save this text message? Because this is the coolest thing ever. But I just thought it was cool because gratitude, and in that handout that I mentioned I had for you guys, I talk about gratitude in that handout. But gratitude, scientifically, there are a bunch of studies that say it literally can change your life. It can help you with your stress levels, but Like they gave, they gave some heart-level examples. They gave— I'm not gonna like speak off turn because there's quite a few of them, but there are many, many benefits that are documented from gratitude. And so I thought, if I can help people with a healthier heart, happier mind, less stress, just from saying, what are you grateful for today? Let's just take a moment. I just think it's the coolest thing. And so a few years ago, I think 6 years ago, I was like, you know, I do this every day. This is a part of who I am. I'm gonna go get this tattooed on my arm. And it's been the coolest thing because now I've I've met so many strangers that go, hey, what's that? Or, you know, kids will point at it and say, what's that for? You know? And so it's been really cool because I was telling someone the other day, I said, if there's one thing I could be known for, having people take a moment, having people take a moment to be grateful. I mean, what's better than that? That's pretty cool.

She should create a podcast and call it the 1234 Podcast.

Seriously. I was— I just talked about so many ideas. I know, right? Yeah, it's just such a cool thing. But like the other day, I was reading an article Just about it. And I was like, this is really amazing. This makes me feel fun. Like, it makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside just knowing that every day there's someone's alarm going off somewhere and they're grateful for something that has nothing to do with me. It's pretty cool.

That is cool. I'll tell you a quick thing. I had a, um, I have a lot of former military people that wind up working for me, not because I was in the military. Closest I came to being in the military was serving drinks But the— thank you for laughing at a very cheesy joke. So I had this employee who did— I've had a couple of employees that have been Special Forces, like not the fake Special Force dudes, like the real dudes that like, you know, Navy SEAL, Green Beret, those folks, right?

Yeah.

I think he did 9 tours before he finally got out. And I go, what was the key? And he goes, he was like, what do you mean? I go, you got all your tactical training, all of that. I go, what was the key? He goes, oh, that's simple. He goes, He goes, when you're surrounded getting shot at by Taliban guys and there's crap blown up, he goes, you just keep saying thank you. I went, what? And he goes, yeah, just keep saying thank you. He goes, I'm living my calling. He goes, it was awesome. I'm like, wow, that is the coolest thing in the world, right? You would think like you'd be like, holy shit, this sucks, blah, blah, blah. He's like, no, you just have this attitude of, wow, this— I'm so thankful that I get to be in this place fighting this battle. So I figure, I figure if a guy that's been shot at and watched his buddies blow up and, you You know, if he can be thankful in that, then I can, I can do my own little part too.

Well, you know, it's interesting though, because I was saying like, even the day that I lost my mom, or even the day I was in the hospital, like sick, I still was great. I still had a lot to be grateful for. And I think that's the problem is that sometimes we aren't able to compartmentalize the things that are happening. And so like, yes, this negative thing's happening. But if you don't allow it to consume the rest of your life, it really does make things a lot easier. And so I was like, even though this negative thing is happening, I'm still so grateful for the people that, you know, support me. And I'm so grateful to be even— I, I made a post the other day and I was like, if you're reading this right now, be grateful you have a phone or a computer to read it on. Sometimes I think that we forget about those like basic things that it's like, wow, this is pretty cool actually. Yeah.

The, um, you know, my— I lost my father when I was 13. And, um, I've talked about this extensively, so I won't go into the heavy details. But basically, I have a— my basic philosophy in life is what if everything's a Mm-hmm. So, lost my dad at 13. We had to sell the house, close his business down, move to a townhome on a golf course. Everybody's like, oh, that must have been horrible. Well, I wound up working in the bag room at Lake Branch and Shores Golf Club, which fueled my love and desire for golf, which led me to go to a place that had a professional golf management program, which is where I met my first wife, which is how I have my 3 kids. So, in the context of that short little window, oh my God, that must have been so awful to lose your dad at 13. I'm like, is it? it? What if it's a blessing? Yeah, right. So I think that's just something that is missed, and it's needed more so in this society than ever. More than ever is this understanding that, um, there's a lot of good things that are going on.

I agree. Yeah, I agree. And you know, one of the like little exercises that I run people through, it's kind of similar. It's like, all write down all your negatives and let's just cross them out And just for shits and gigs, let's just put a positive thing. Even, you know, let's just say something.

Do you make them rephrase it from the negative to the positive?

I'm curious. Yes, I do. Yes, I have them. Yes. So, it's like we are wiping that out. Forget about this. This is no longer part of our vocabulary. When your thoughts start to go to that, we're going to focus on what we actually want or reframe it. So, like some things you can't control. If you had, let's say, an abusive father in the past, you can't be like, my dad's amazing, but like, my dad loved me. My dad, you know, just what are some good things that you can— some good qualities. That way you can, next time you start thinking the negatives of them, it's like, no, I'm no longer available for that. This is the story that I'm gonna move forward with. Because once again, it comes down to control. We don't give ourselves enough control over— listen, I can— I do have control over this thought. This is not the path that I still want to go. This is not the story that I still want to tell. And let's do something different this time.

Yep, that is— my mother was a very difficult woman. I remember when I was going through some really difficult time, God had me write her eulogy, even though she was still alive. And you know, you get up and do somebody's eulogy, you're not gonna go, she was a pain in the ass, you know, but nobody wants to hear that. Maybe like in a Halloween film, they want to see it. But no, you gotta like, okay, so the gift that I have of my resiliency and my tenacity comes from her, right? Because she didn't take any shit, right? You know, a lot of reasons why, I won't go into it. But it's like, okay, that was the gift from her. I may not have had these other things that I wanted, right? Instead of hating her, instead of being angry at her for who she wasn't, I try to be thankful for who she was, right?

Yeah.

And you know what I mean? Like, and I think so many times we— when we get into difficult situations We want to look at everything that's going wrong when instead we've got to say, instead of looking at all the things that we don't have out of this, what do we have? What do we have? You know, what's the gift in all of this? Okay, you start the day, you may have 5 patients in the books, think you're gonna have a $10,000 day. You wind up with 4 no-shows or 3 no-shows. One comes in and has no money and the other one has to think about it, right? Like, you just— this is common things that my clients deal with, but every step along the way, there's that opportunity to be, okay, Okay, I'm getting a gift from some of this. There's something for me to learn from and grow from on this.

So absolutely. I was gonna say there's so many similarities just in things that we say. It's— I'm like, this is a really good conversation. I mean, it's funny that we haven't talked before, and I was like, yeah, man, exactly. I'm just over here nodding my head. Lots of similarities.

Okay, well, you know, you're moving to Nashville, or you think you're moving to Nashville, so you got to go.

I think so.

You got to say preach it, sister, and amen, and then you're good. So, okay, we got a few minutes left here. How do people get in touch with— let's share some final thoughts and then how do people get in touch with you if they wanna learn more and stalk you? I shouldn't say stalk, follow you on social media.

Yeah, so all of my social media is Tarlese. It's T-A-R-L-E-S-E. That's my handle across all of them. My website is tarlese.com. My email, if for some reason you have any questions, is tarlese@tarlese.com. So pretty much everything is my name. There are a couple other Tarlese, But I always pop up first, so we're good to go there. And then, um, I don't know when this is gonna air, but by the time it does, that stress management toolkit should be up on my website. If not, just message me directly. I have it in an Evernote link.

One of these days I'm gonna put you in contact with like Perry Belcher or Ryan Deiss or Perry Marshall and have you like do— we're gonna create a whole program of— we're just gonna call it the Evernote Sales System, right?

That's so funny. No, but I do, I do have it just in a— it's It's a great doc. I mean, I've shared it with so many people and it's just fun. It's funny. Last thing though, you were talking about, I was with the real military people. I went to a Zazen sniper rifle shooting meditation retreat. So we would meditate and then we would shoot sniper rifles and then we'd meditate and then we'd shoot rifles. And I shot 900 feet away and I'd never shot a gun before. Dead center. So 9 football fields essentially away.

Dead center.

Dead center. And we worked with guys that were actually like in the actual Marines that, you know, yeah, actual SEALs. Yes. And so the SEALs, SEALs, they taught us how to shoot. The guy, he was, you know, a SEAL. And then we did meditation. So it's very interesting because you were saying, I can't really get into meditation. I was like, what if there were rifles though? It was kind of fun.

If there were rifles, I could probably get into it. Yeah. Because I enjoy, I enjoy firing off a few rounds every once in a while. So Well, Tarlese, this has been a hoot. I'm glad we finally connected after all this time, and I look forward to sharing more in the future. Again, check her out at tarlese.com. And folks, just remember, there's no sense— my best advice to my younger self is relax. So, it's going to be okay. Thanks, Tarlese. Appreciate it so much.

Thanks for having me.

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