155: Stress and Pressure Aren’t the Same: What It Is Costing You to Not Know the Difference

Welcome to the Leadership Formula Podcast where you will learn the secret sauce behind achieving massive success. I'm your host Tracy o', Malley, multimillion dollar entrepreneur, your Enneagram expert, master performance Coach and mom to Millennials. Do you want deep, meaningful relationships to wake up every day with purpose and make money doing something you love? Well, you've landed in the right place. Every week I will teach you how to get exactly what you want in life by strengthening your emotional intelligence. Using a combination of the Enneagram framework, live life coaching sessions and real talk from yours truly, it's time to transform yourself into the ultimate leader of your life.

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How often do you say things like I work in a high pressure environment or I have a really stressful job or or I Am stressed out or if you're like me, you just don't say a damn thing and you just put the head down and power through. The thing between stress and pressure, there's a huge, huge difference. A huge difference. And your failure to understand the difference between the two could be the thing that holds you back from everything that you desire in your life. So what do you do with that? Right. Well, you know, I was sitting in my therapist's office the other day and we were talking about something, a few different things, and this is a common theme in my life, that in order for something to be beautiful, I have a belief somewhere that it needs to be hard or that it needs to be chaotic. And you know, the, the fact is, is I do thrive under pressure. But in that pressure state and, and knowing that sometimes I, I need to manufacture some pressure, I can actually cause more harm than good by putting myself in a stressful situation. Right? So there's a critical difference between stress and pressure. And while we all face both stress and pressure in our personal and professional lives, there is a very clear distinction between the two. Stress refers to the situation of too many demands and not enough resources like time, money, energy to meet them. So myself, for an example, when my back's up against the wall, I happen to shine. Now sometimes I will procrastinate, I will self sabotage, I will say yes to too many things. And so instead of putting pressure on myself, that actually causes more stress because now I am maxed out. I don't have enough time to get it all done. The energy is depleted. You know, some of this stuff costs money. I'm in, you know, a mastermind. I've got a few coaches like there's a whole bunch of stu that is making it stressful. Instead of pressure, pressure is a situation in which you perceive that something at stake is dependent on the outcome of your performance. And you know, we've heard the story about the diamond. You know, the diamond doesn't become the diamond without pressure. Anything beautiful doesn't come without a little bit of pressure. Stress may involve a variety of problems that lead to feelings of overload, let's say a meeting that runs late, a long list of emails, lots of deadlines that need to be addressed, putting your kids in too many activities, putting the pressure on your children. Pressure involves feelings often of an anxious and fearful nature of a do or die type situation when you've only got one shot to get it right. Like being at bat in the ninth inning of the World Series with the tying run and scoring Position or a presentation to a client or job interview, you'll experience pressure. And, you know, back, oh, gosh, nine years ago now, when I walked away from my income, my career of 15 years, I went to rehab. As some of you know, taken my life down to the foundation, I created a little bit of pressure in my life to make something happen. You know, I know a lot of you are on this quest, like, what am I here for? I don't even know what I like to do. I'm not recommending burning all the boats kind of like I did. However, I tend to operate pretty well in that position and it put some pressure on me to figure it out fast. So enter network marketing. At the time, I did not explore network marketing for a career. I loved a product line and kind of decided that I liked it. And then about seven days in, I was like, well, wait just a second, I'm unemployed. I love this product. I heard it had a component to it to help others as well as make some money. How about that? And had I had a safety net and not any pressure to do it, what has transpired over the last nine years, which is the tune of $5 million in network marketing, would not have happened. So a way that you can help kind of hone in on what the difference is, it's like, it's like, you know, discernment versus avoidance. You know, if you say something like, oh, this isn't in alignment with, with who I am, or is that just you avoiding it because it's uncomfortable? Right. So this is gonna require some radical honesty on. I can inadvertently and subconsciously kind of stress myself out while I'm trying to put pressure and I actually make it worse by piling more on thinking that's going to add more pressure. That isn't necessarily what will give you the pressure to make things happen. So anytime that you feel the heat, I want you to ask yourself, am I feeling overwhelmed by the demands that are on me or do I feel like I have to produce a specific result? If your answer is the former, a feeling of being overwhelmed, too many demands, not enough resources, then you're stressed. If you're in a situation or entering one, which you feel you have to deliver the goods, that's pressure. This last month, as you guys heard at the beginning of this podcast, my best friend Tiffany and I are putting together a six week intensive that you've all been asking for. It's a combination of like, collective masterminding as well as group coaching, but it has this customized one on one component that really is missing in a lot of the things. And I know this is needed. You've all told me you want this. She has been not pressuring. Well, yes, we'll say she's been pressuring me for about a year to do something together. And I just. I put myself in stressful situations. You know how I avoided it? I piled on. I piled on. So I didn't have the energy, time, or resources in order to do that. Until I backed myself into a corner, I could not schedule any more into my days. Even though I love what I do more than anything, I literally could do it all day. And I do. In order to help more of you, I couldn't. And I had to start a wait list for my services. And that pissed me off. It pissed me off a lot because there's so many of you that want the help. You're raising your hand saying, trace, I'm freaking ready, but I can't get in. And it pissed me off enough and added enough pressure that I needed to say no to a few things. So you can see how instead of adding more on, it created more stress, and I couldn't do the very thing that I am here to do now. Putting people on a wait list and having to say no to some things puts a pressure. Okay, now it's do or die. Now I have to make this happen. And although it felt like a pressure cooker the last few weeks for me and very, very uncomfortable, I was here for it, and I could feel it. And it didn't feel great. Like, pressure doesn't always feel great. However, you know, I knew that there is a beautiful thing at the end of this, and it's one of those things where you have to look in the mirror and be radically honest with yourself. Right? So distinguishing between stress and pressure can lead to different courses of action. In a stressful situation, feeling less overwhelmed becomes the goal. But in a pressure situation, performing successfully is the goal. Right. So to relieve stress, I needed to take some stuff off the plate to add pressure. I needed to clear the plate so that I could step into what I'm here to do. You have lots of choices when you're under stress. And I'll kind of go through the enneagram types to let you know where you go. One of the things that I like to do, and I tell my clients to do, is to move your body specifically outside, if you can. Moving that energy around will kind of dislodge some of the things when you're outside, especially without your face buried into electronics. And you're breathing in the air, you're more conscious of your own breath. You can see the world around you and kind of it can put things in perspective. It also gets the endorphins going, which is, you know, some feel good energy and feel good stuff in your body. The other thing that I have added to this, and this one's hard for me, is asking for help. I am very, very challenged at that. And the last two weeks because I feel the pressure in order to make it happen, I do have to ask help. And I have had to take some more personal time in order to really get my head and my soul right. There's many ways to reduce the load or manage your stress. And if you were like me, you're like, well, I have to do it, I have to do it. And you become this martyr or if it's to be, it's up to me or any of those things that is you self sabotaging. And it is so damn sneaky, right? So you don't have the same options in a pressure situation. Like think about like the Navy seals who's involved in a do or die rescue mission, doesn't have time to start performing yoga, or a helicopter pilot who needs to make an emergency landing or anything to reduce the stress level. In true pressure situations, you will need to devote every ounce of energy to the task at hand. That's why when we bury ourselves under stress, we will never have the emotional capacity to do the things that we are here to do. So knowing that you're in a pressure pressure moment is your cue to focus on the performance that will meet the demands of the task at hand. And so if you don't figure out how to lighten the load of the stress, my therapist said to me, do you believe that everything needs to be hard for it to be worthy? And we were talking about relationships at the time and I realized looking back at 30 so years of relationships in my life, yeah, I made them hard. I made them all hard. And that's my part in it. There was a whole other situation on the other end, but my part in it is like, yeah, I believe that it needed to be intense, it needed to be stressful in order to be worthy. Because that's what I knew growing up. Right. When we don't understand the critical difference between stress and pressure, we're at risk of making every small inconvenience feel like a pressure situation. And if you constantly walk around thinking you're under pressure, you'll believe you have to be stressful. All the time, like I did. And that's a lot like, you will burn the frick out, right? And that distortion can cause you to feel as though you're always under the gun when everything seems super important. You know, our distress unnecessarily intensifies and it can feel like a rollercoaster all the time. And that overreaction to everyday discomforts takes a toll on your performance because it deletes the resources that you need energetically, emotionally. We lose the ability to think clearly and your energy becomes misplaced. And you continue to act as though everyday activities are a matter of life and death. And like, no, no, no, no, no, that won't work for you. The good news is we all have the ability to reduce inappropriate reactions to stress and pressure. Learning to control that distorted thinking and reduce spiked arousal. I'm an intensive, I'm an intensity junkie. Like, that's the lust. Like lust is the vice of the eight. So we crave intensity so we can manufacture what we think is pressure and turn it into a whole heap of stress. You can also decrease your impulsive actions. These are a few of the keys to reduce your feelings of distress. Distinguishing stress from pressure can prevent you from becoming so worn out that you eventually burn out. And so for the Enneagram types, like the ones and all of this is wrapped up in our biggest fear, being exposed, right? And each Enneagram type has a very, very specific fear that they are working very hard to protect at all costs. So the type ones, the improvers, reformers, perfectionists, they have a fear of being wrong or lazy. So their aim to be principled, good, controlled and intentional. And so a lot of times they will be out to prove that they're good and right all the time that they will pile on so much. And then what happens is resentment kicks in and then they explode. And when they get back pushed to the brink under stress, that's when it does turn sideways. How a one could add pressure is quite honestly, for A one to put pressure on them is to give them a deadline and a drop dead deadline. Because if you give a one too much leeway, they'll never produce anything for fear. It's not perfect, right? So this is how I can put some healthy pressure on A1 type. Twos fear being unloved and unwanted. And so in order to prove that and to keep that fear at bay, they say yes to a lot of people, they say yes to everything. And then when it's not appreciated or when it's not acknowledged, their resentment kicks in and then they become martyrs or codependent and they can't take care of themselves. Their body breaks down. And so to put healthy pressure on a 2, I have a son that's a 2. I make him do shit by himself. And take time for themself to do something that doesn't involve another human being, but something that they would enjoy too. Because you want them to understand what they actually desire and need for themselves. Because that will put some pressure on them. Trust me, for some people, like that would be like a no brainer. But for a 2, that will add pressure. And what this will allow them to do is to be able to say yes to the things that really matter to them. But they've spent so much time trying to prove that they're lovable that they don't even sometimes know what that looks like. And in order to find that, you have to create space. Type threes fear being worthless and disrespected. And so we see this a lot, especially in the entrepreneur land. They will be hyperactive in goal setting and goal crushing, right? And they will put so much stress on themselves to achieve at all costs. Achieve at all costs, and this will burn out their body. I see so many threes in adrenal fatigue or body total breakdown. So how to put pressure on a three is to slow them down. They don't like this. They don't like this even a little bit. Because if their, their worth is tied in what they do achieve or how they appear to slow down and not winning at something, this will create pressure for them. But this will also allow them to find and see what really matters to them in the grand scheme of things and know that their worth is in more than just what they do. The fours fear being meaningless or inauthentic. The romantics or individualists avoid being boring, normal, superficial, uninteresting, average. And so a lot of times they'll add stress to their lives by being a little emotional, dramatic, emotionally intense. They will stir the pot a little bit to kind of create some kind of anything. My sister is a four and growing up she didn't care how she got the attention, even if it was negative, right? And sometimes a four will do that to prove that they are unique and authentic. And this creates stress in a lot of their relationships. It creates a feeling like there's something missing in them and it kind of robs them. They're always on this constant quest to find out who they are. And sometimes they'll end up alone and feeling so misunderstood that they Just withdraw altogether. And we see that with comedians and musicians and artistic, creative people that go into a depression. And the fours have such a unique gift of creativity and storytelling and all like, they bring beauty into the world. I mean, they're romantics at heart. And so how you put pressure on a four is just adding a tiny bit of structure. They don't like it because it feels so mundane, but that's actually where their confidence is built so that their gifts can come out into the world. The Fives fear being incapable or incompetent and not knowing. The investigators aim at being in control by understanding their world, and they can stress themselves out. They admire those that are free spirited. They really, really desire that. But what happens for a five is they put the stre. In order to be a free spirit, they have to reverse engineer how exactly it's going to go. And they become very analytical. And a Five, when they do this to themselves, it becomes so much that it feels like their brain's going to implode. And all of a sudden, they can be scattered and just. If you could see inside the head of a 5, an enneagram 5, it gets pretty crazy up in there, right? They're ruled by their head as opposed to the heart, and they seek learning and insight because they don't want to feel ignorant, inadequate, clueless. And how they earn the respect and acceptance of others is by being competent and effective. So if they don't know how things are going to go, this will create stress because of the. The brain power it's taking to have so much clarity about what's going to happen. And so how I push a five is to make very quick decisions that discernment, because a five goes to a healthy eight when they're growing. So using discernment and more decisive action taking, they won't like it. That will feel like a lot of pressure. But that's how their wisdom and their gifts can come out into the world. The Sixes fear chaos and being unsupported. They need certainty at a next level. The loyalists deeply engage with others and their environments to ensure all that as well. It's why they're great collaborators. Not necessarily because they love collaborating, but because they want to make sure everybody's doing what they need to do right. And this need for certainty and this need for support and knowing that they're responsible, they can be hypervigilant and controlling. And what happens is then they can even start getting competitive. And a Six, by nature, doesn't like competition because that adds so much Chaos, and they don't want chaos. But then that creates more stress and then the cycle continues and then the tornado of uncertainty happens and that freaks them out. And so for the sixes to add pressure, I a lot of times say, okay, we're going to take action. What's the best that can happen? Because there's such worst case scenario thinkers, that's their superpower as well as their kryptonite. Asking a 6 what's the best that can happen and then having them take some action on that, it will create pressure for them. Trust me, that will create a lot of pressure for a six. And understanding what creates pressure for each enneagram type is key Here in leadership type, Sevens fear that they're going to be trapped, caged or deprived. The enthusiast seeks sensation, fun, stimulation, variety, fulfillment in order to avoid disappointment, pain, sadness or helplessness. And so their spontaneous and versatile behavior is aimed at pursuing desires that they fear will not be fulfilled by others. They are always seeking for the next best thing. They're visionaries and innovators, naturally, they really, really are. But this fear of being caged, trapped, deprived, missing out, I mean, they're the kings and queens of fomo, right? So what happens is they'll say they'll bounce from thing to thing and none of this beautiful stuff will come to fruition. And what happens is they feel overwhelmed, right? They feel overwhelmed and then they become rigid and close minded, which is the absolute opposite of the sevens, right? So how I push a enthusiast type 7 is to have them honor some solitude, right? Give them a container where a lot of these innovative, beautiful ideas can come to fruition. The eights like you heard me talk about, we fear being controlled, violated or betrayed or put in a vulnerable situation. So challengers come across as assertive, willful, self directed and super confident. And the core fear is to be controlled, violated. Like I said, eights don't need to be in control of everything, trust me. But we will not be controlled. And they avoid this. The challengers avoid this by taking control in a powerful and self sufficient way to ensure they get what they want. Meaning we're a lone wolf, right? And a lot of times to prove that we won't be controlled, that's when we get very domineering, aggressive, kind of like pumping our chest, like flexing the big I am strong muscles. And that's kind of what happened to me is like doing all this work by myself all the time has backed me into a corner and it stressed me out so much energetically, I was depleted and so now it was time to clear the plate and ask for help, which is very hard, very, very hard for an eight to do and to lean into vulner vulnerability. Because when we can do that, not only is it scary, it adds pressure. Now we've put out into the world, into the universe, into another human being, some accountability, saying, this is what's on my heart, this is what I'm here to do. And now knowing somebody else knows this, you know, this is where my, my strong muscles can come into play because I will not let somebody think I don't follow through, right? But there's this healthy fine line in all of these. The type nines finally fear being confronted. The peacemakers are fearful of conflict, disharmony, and being disconnected from others. Therefore, they refrain from questioning or challenging themselves or other people. And instead they accommodate others to maintain peace, harmony and stability. And so what ends up putting them under stress is not having an opinion. You know, they're put in these situations where they're always kind of reading like, what will cause the least amount of upset or conflict. And so that takes a lot of energy for them. It really, it takes a lot of energy for all of us to try and read every situation. And nines are in the body triad. They're instinctual by nature, but they learned how to shut it down to avoid conflict. And this creates a whole bunch of stress. What happens is then they become passive aggressive, very stubborn, and procrastinating, which creates even more stress in their body. They become lazy in spirit, and then they feel terrible. So how I Challenge A9 is to have an opinion when somebody asks them what they think, feel or believe, don't think too long. Just be decisive and say it. I also have nines take action. They move to the healthy three in a growth pattern. So we want to channel some of that, you know, even though it's really scary for them to take some action and have an opinion and letting them know, like, you know, I know you want to help people. You truly, truly do, as the peacemaker. And sometimes the greatest help you can give people is to actually challenge them. Right? So understanding the difference between stress and pressure will be the key to moving forward and having the abundance you want. And like I said at the beginning of this episode, Tiffany and I have created this program to help put the pressure on in all the right places. And you can do that by going to projectmewithtiffani.com getdownwaitlist or if you know that you want to do some more one on one stuff with me. I would be honored to take you through the journey. You can go to traceyomally.com the work with me section. I have opened up the wait list. It is now free for you to get on that train and deep dive in all the things things you. It is an honor for me to take you on that journey and if you are loving what we're doing here at the new Leadership Formula Podcast, it would mean the world to me that you share this or tell me what you learned from it or what you want more of. What do you want more of so that I can serve you better? Seriously. It's time. It's time to transform yourself into the ultimate leader of your life. In your home and in your businesses and in all things you do.

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