A short early-morning YouTube monologue by Sandi L Boucher (Andy Bouget/Red Thunderbolt) about managing self-imposed stress, the value of taking a mental health day, and recovering from a recent financial/business challenge. The speaker emphasizes prioritizing minimal unnecessary stress, celebrates overcoming hardship, encourages regrouping instead of quitting, and connects these practices to sustaining leadership and reconciliation work.
Chapters
Hello, you super duper double delicious person, you. I'm doing one of those early morning videos again. It's 5:30am and I feel amazing because I took a mental health day yesterday. Let's talk about it. Hi everybody. My name is Andy Bouget. I'm Red Thunderbolt, woman of the Loon clan, a proud member of of Zane River First Nation in Treaty 3 territory in Northern Ontario. And yes, it's 5:30 in the morning and yes, I feel amazing. And yes, this video should normally already be uploaded on YouTube. And guess what? I don't think one of you care or if one of you do, it's a very small number of you. That was a deadline imposed on me, by me. So if I need to put it up a little bit later, if I need to take a mental health day, I'm not stressing over pressure, I'm putting on myself. And I'm wondering how many of you needed to hear that just now. You can ask my family members. My kitchen's a mess. Don't care if you care. You would be one of those people my mom would say to. She used to always say, you know, if someone comes over to your place and they're critiquing and criticizing how you keep your home, make sure it's the last time they're in your home. Do I like a clean kitchen? Absolutely. Do I try to keep it clean? A hundred percent. Is it more important than running my business and paying for this building? No. If I'm exhausted at the end of the day, I've given my all to running this company and supporting my team and supporting the people I work with and I don't have the energy to do the kitchen. Am I going to beat myself up? No. Because the earth is not going to stop. The world is not going to come crashing to a halt if I don't clean my kitchen. Self imposed pressure. If there's one thing that I value more than anything now, it is minimal stress. Not no stress stress. Life comes with stress. I like my healthy stress of running a company that's definitely not for the faint of heart. But I don't add in unnecessary stress stress. Do I have to meet revenue goals to pay my bills? Yes. That. That's a stress I got to deal with. I can't run away from all of you people trying to hide from your bills. That doesn't work. Throwing them on top of the fridge is not going to help you. It is going to hurt you. I am definitely one of those people that the unknown is my Worst fear, I can deal with anything. If I know it's going to happen, then I can come up with a plan. It's the not knowing that gets me. But what if you're taking good steps and you're making good decisions and you get hit with that one more, that one more challenge, that one more big expense, that one more health challenge? Sometimes you got to retreat. You don't quit. You retreat. Regroup, recalibrate. And that's what I did yesterday. Now, if you follow my blog posts on Facebook and LinkedIn usually depends if I I share them to LinkedIn. You know that recently my business suffered a financial challenge. And I thank creator every single day that I had the means to take the actions that offset that challenge. But it was stressful. It was emotional. It was overwhelming. The decisions I had to make were not easy ones. One, I'm super proud of myself for having built up a network that allowed me to get through that. Two, I'm super proud of the decisions I made. Three, I am now sitting on the other side of that challenge. It is now another medal I wear. It is another challenge I have overcome. For all you people out there that are just thinking you have nothing left to give, regroup, recalibrate and rest. Because those are mountains you've climbed. Don't hang on to the challenge that you've already overcome. Let that go. Now. Celebrate it. Holy crap, that was hard. And I did it. Holy crap, that was overwhelming. And it's over. Now I'm sitting here shooting this video because last night I went to bed early. I knew I needed the rest. I knew I needed the regroup and the recalibration. And I am so freaking glad I did it because here I am once again loving my career and loving you for coming to my channel and checking out what I have to offer. I know it's gonna be a super duper, double delicious day, even if it has challenges and stress, because that's life. But I've packed a good canoe and I can do this river. I can even portage if I have to. I got this, and I hope you can say same. So sorry for the late video. I know it's a shorter video. It's early. I don't know if you've had your coffee yet. Maybe you're watching this in the evening and you're fine. I have no idea. But I am here, ready to serve, ready to help bring this country together. When I took on that task, I of reconciliation or transformation, did a video on that. I knew it wasn't going to be easy. I knew it wasn't going to be solved by Tuesday. I also know that the greatest things in the world are the things we have to fight for. So until tomorrow. I love you. Talk to you soon. Bye. Bye.
