181: Overcome Phobias and Anxiety with Adam Cox

Hi, I'm Natalie. Jill, fat loss expert turned high performance coach. When odds are stacked against us, how do we shift and create everything from nothing? How do we level up when we aren't feeling it yet or we've had a big setback. On this podcast, I'll be talking to some of the most inspiring and courageous men and women on this planet who at their worst, learned how to achieve success greater than they ever dreamed possible. Leveling up and creating everything from nothing. Today I've got Adam Cox, who is a psychologist and a hypnotherapist. He's a founder of Phobia Guru. He says that he helps people eliminate their anxiety and their phobias. So he's widely known in the UK as a leading expert as dealing with phobias quickly. So quickly they call him the Phobia guru. That's what he's called. And I thought I really wanted to know his story. And especially with what we're going on right now with everything with the coronavirus in the world, people's phobias, anxiety, depression, it's all coming out in full force. And as I've shared before, I'm not an expert in dealing with this, but I'm an expert in feeling things like anxiety. So I thought, who better to interview than some of these experts on this? So thank you so much, Adam, for being here today.

Thank you for the invite.

Yeah. So, Adam, take us back. I'm assuming that there's a story behind you being the Phobia Guru and being able to help people with anxiety. Were you somebody that was always able to master this or were you somebody who felt this?

Yeah, I mean, I always say that I was my first client because when I first went to university, I was 18, 19 years old and just crippled, absolutely crippled by anxiety. So I was always quite a shy teenager. But when I kind of was living on my own for the very first time, I. It got to a stage where I wouldn't even leave my kind of tiny, tiny bedsit. So as a one room apartment, just opening the door to leave that apartment, my heart would beat out my chest. And my fears back then, my anxieties were, unfortunately, people. It was kind of a real high level social phobia. So whenever there was kind of groups of people, I would just get real self conscious. Very high levels of anxiety. I had a fear of heights, I had a fear of public speaking. So all of these kind of things just meant that my world was getting smaller and smaller and I was always quite ambitious. But it's Difficult to imagine a successful future if you can't even speak to three people or you can't even leave your apartment. So it forced me to really figure out what anxiety was, how the symptoms of anxiety are created and in particular what works, what changes it. And you know, that took me about two or three years to really go through those things. But the same process of getting through those early fears meant that I could go through kind of newer fears. So at the age of 23 I set up my own business and then since then became know, quite financially successful, have several businesses, quite a few properties. But that all comes back to defeating the fear that was controlling me.

So I have so many questions so I want to back up before we get to the 23 year old you that then created what you've created today. And I have a lot of questions about that as well. But so the anxiety and the phobias, one, did you know that that's what they were or did you think this was something normal? And like, did this start as a kid? Like could you trace it back to like when you first felt it?

Yeah, I think as a, I mean I was definitely an introvert. I still am an introvert, but I think as a, as a child I think I was fairly shy. As a teenager, very self conscious. But I would say it was probably the age of 15 where I changed schools. Going from one school to a new school at 15 and being quite shy, being quite introverted wasn't the best transition for me. And I think that kind of certainly had an impact on how I responded to people, particularly people I didn't know. And then going to university where that is kind of like an even bigger number of people, massively kind of restricted my ability. Back then I wouldn't have labeled it anxiety. It was just something that didn't make me feel very good. And in my experience what people do when they don't feel comfortable is they avoid the things that make them feel that way.

Yeah. Instead of fixing it for themselves, they just avoid the situation because they're like, this doesn't feel good, I don't want to feel this way, so let me just avoid it. Now do you think people are born with that or is that something created? Like I'm curious about like your childhood, like how your parents were to you, like did they say this is Adam, he's the shy one in the family or did an incident happen? I'm very intrigued by this because there's that question, like are people born introverted and shy or is that something that they become.

Yeah, so I think personality traits, there's definitely a biological and an environmental impact. Fears itself is different. You're only born with two fears and that's the fear of falling and the fear of loud noises. So every other fear is learned and we learn them normally by combination of the people around us. So siblings, parents, you know, extended family. And quite often if we see those people that we trust and are, let's say, more experienced than we are looking, like they're scared of certain situations, we very quickly figure out that's something to be avoided. So most, not just phobias, but fears as well, learned from our peers, reinforced by the media. And for me, you know, looking back on it now, my father was very risk averse. So that, you know, you could say would avoid things that would be, let's say, challenging or risky. And certainly my mother was quite an anxious person. So definitely I probably picked these things.

Yeah, because you start looking at it as normal behavior, I would imagine, like, okay, so if dad's worried about this or he's like cautioning and then mom is anxious, then like this is normal. I need to be acting this way. That makes a lot of sense.

Yeah, totally. And for me, they didn't get as bad as me. You know, for me it was full on panic attacks. It was, you know, creating a, you know, I call it my own prison. It was a prison of my own making because effectively I didn't realize that these things that I was avoiding were so generalized that it became virtually the whole world. So, you know, hiding away. And obviously I know a lot more about anxiety since. But avoidance is not a very good coping strategy for anxiety because it sensitizes you to whatever that thing is. So the more you avoid it, the less is required to create the same level. And the metaphor I use when I'm working with clients is that certain microphones, for example, a microphone on a mobile phone is, it's dynamic in the sense that if you're in a really crowded place and there's lots of people, then your microphone becomes less sensitive. And if you're in a really quiet place, you could whisper to someone, it would still pick it up. That's kind of how anxiety is. So if you kind of avoid anything that you think causes anxiety, then even a small thing could create very intense feelings.

I want to dive a little bit more into that because that I see that all the time with people, myself included. And it's really a lot of control and really we can't control anything. So I do that all the time. So it's like, okay, this doesn't feel good. Let me avoid it. And let's just to give you an example right now, with everything going on in the world, I think there's a lot of people, they want to be aware of the news. So they go to their news sources, or worse, they'll go to Facebook, right? And then, so what I decided myself was I don't feel good after I'm on Facebook, scrolling and seeing all of this negative news. Therefore, I will avoid it. So from what you're saying, like, that's the better way would be to learn how to cope with it. So it's. You don't feel like you have to avoid it, or where do you draw the line on what you should avoid or not avoid?

Yeah, it's a really good question. So when it comes to a stimulus, there is a fine line between fearless and reckless. So if we look at a very popular phobia, such as spiders, for example, okay, you know, if, if someone avoids any kind of contact, if there's a spider in a room and they run away, that's an avoidance strategy and that will increase anxiety. But they don't have to spend day after day surrounded by spiders and actually voluntarily go to spiders to desensitize that feeling. It's just about getting the balance right. And I think the overall healthy balance between control and anxiety is to accept that there are huge amounts of variables that you're not in control of and to accept that you can't control the variables, but you can control your response to those variables. So we can't control what's happening with coronavirus right now, but we can control how much news we consume. We can control what we do, you know, where we go and how we spend our time. So the key thing is knowing that you have the ability to respond to what's happening and also have the ability to change behavior depending on how it makes you feel. Now, for some people that are very pragmatic, they can read the news, it doesn't affect them at all. You know, it's like they've got a suit of armor for other people that might have different neural pathways that might be wired differently, anything about. And it could be fake news, it could be a scare story, it could be a famous person contracting a virus and they're absolutely going to freak out. They can be in tears and they're going to be very stressed and very anxious. So it's about knowing your own response to those kind of things and either avoiding the stimulus if you know it's going to trigger you in a certain way, or if you can't avoid it, then maybe reflecting on how you can change the perceptions or the beliefs that are the root cause of that particular fear. And a lot of fears and a lot of anxiety are based on not the thing itself, but the beliefs that we have about the thing.

Yeah. So how do we nav. Well, two questions that are really different, but I want to make sure I ask you both of these and we can in either order. One, I want to ask about, like, when people take, like a Xanax or a medicine to cope. I want to. I'm curious about that and I'm also curious about what happens when the world is putting the fear on us. So, like right now, for instance, even if you avoid the news, we're told in most places to stay home, like, do not go out, this virus is spreading. Don't go out, Avoid watch hands, social distancing. So how do we navigate that? Because it's being put on us. So both those questions.

So, yeah, the first question in terms of medication. So medication does not deal with the cause of anxiety. It's purely there to treat the symptoms. And quite often you get things that are encouraged to relax people, such as antidepressants or beta blockers that actually deal with the anxiety itself. Either way is really important for any individual taking this medication to know that that doesn't make the anxiety go away. It's purely to treat the symptoms of the anxiety. And that might be, you know, a rapid heartbeat, that might be muscle tension, that might be, you know, a feeling of turmoil in the stomach or whatever. It might be a racing, you know, kind of thoughts. It doesn't treat the cause. So I always, you know, think is a good thing to say, well, look, if you. If you can deal with the cause of the anxiety, well, then you don't need the medication to treat the symptoms because the symptoms aren't there anymore. So that's my philosophy when it comes to kind of medication. In terms of your very valid point of what happens when life gets in the way. Well, to give you an example, as someone that specializes in phobias, sometimes you see unusual phobias. So an unusual phobia, for example, is a fear of clowns. Now, there are some people, you know, very small percentage of people that will have an extreme reaction to seeing, you know, someone dressed as a clown. Now, avoidance, I happen to think, is an excellent strategy to deal with coulrophobia, the fear of clowns.

But there's actually a name for it, Coulrophobia. I've never heard of that.

But when, when the movie it came out and this was like two different, you know, kind of over two different summers, you know, the first chapter, the second chapter, suddenly there are pictures all over the place of Pennywise the clown. I don't know if you remember the, the killer clown craze. That was kind of three years ago. So when, when life throws these kind of things, avoidance is no longer an effective strategy because you just surrounded by the stimulus. The same thing is happening with the coronavirus in the sense that if you have got, let's say a fear of germs. So mysophobia, for example. Mysophobia is a very, very severe fear of germs. Well, a lot of the time you can cope with that by avoiding certain places and washing your hands. But if you're surrounded by news reports that are saying there is this highly contagious, lethal thing that's going to increase anxiety massively. Equally if you are a claustrophobic, for example, someone that doesn't like to be enclosed or have the rules say that you can't go outside, well right now under you know, lockdown as they're calling it, well suddenly you can't, you know, choose to kind of stretch your legs and kind of go wherever you want because there's now restrictions. And this is an, you know, this happens a lot in a lot of different cases where the moment where avoidance is no longer strategy. That tends to be when people either seek self medication or external help from someone like me. But by far self medication is the number one way. And if they can't find prescription medication then it tends to be food, it tends to be alcohol, it tends to be sometimes crazy amounts of watching TV or social media because distraction will also work with anxiety. So self medication, it treats the symptoms. It kind of works, but it's not a long term strategy because it just creates new addictions.

Let's talk about the dangers of doing the self medication because other than the obvious thing of addiction, so obviously you're doing illegal drugs that could be an addiction. I want to talk about the dangers because I think it is very comfortable for people to go to that. Like and I countless times here people say either Xanax or they'll say their wine or it's marijuana. Like I hear this all the time. So I heard you say that we're just treating the symptoms. But what's the long term damage of doing that? I want to really understand that.

Yeah, so it depends obviously what the substance is. You know, if someone eats and that's their coping strategy, then you've got all the health implications. That could be heart disease, that could be obesity, that could be all those things. If someone smokes, for example, you're going to have maybe respiratory kind of issues. If someone takes prescription medication, there tends to be side effects. And also dependency is also a side effect that can kind of kick into that because the body becomes, it takes more to kind of deal with the same level of symptoms before because the body habituates against those same things. So it really is dependent in terms of the long term impact. But what you can say is that whatever the coping mechanism is, if it's biochemical in nature, so drink, drugs or food, then it's not going to be a desirable kind of thing. There are other ways of dealing with anxiety as well. Anxiety tends to affect muscle tension, it affects breathing and it affects biochemistry. So exercise is also a really good way to deal with anxiety because if you shift your focus from the trigger of the anxiety to lifting weights, for example, or, or doing cardio, well, that shifts your attention, changes your physiology, changes your heart rate, changes your breathing rate. All of these are symptoms of anxiety anyway. So there are, let's say, not so good coping mechanisms such as eating, drinking, drugs. And then there are very effective, and I would say the two key effective ways of coping with anxiety, one is exercise. And secondly is actually getting to the root cause of the anxiety and then creating new neural pathways. Okay, the metaphor that I use for explaining that. So everyone has had at least once in their life where they had a row of dominoes and then they tipped over the first one and then it kind of created a bit of a chain reaction. And that's kind of how it is with anxiety. A lot of the time people feel anxiety not because they're choosing to, but because they're in a situation where they feel it and they feel it before they even know what's happening. Now, neurologically, what's happening is there is neural pathways that make them feel the thing before they even know what's happened. And that normally starts with a stimulus that could be a news report, that could be seeing a spider or seeing a dog or whatever the cause of the anxiety is. The better way of doing it is to go to the root cause of whatever's triggering that chain reaction and then basically messing up that pattern and then steering into more useful, more resourceful state. So for me, the ideal resourceful state would be courage or fascination or confidence Rather than overwhelm or anxiety and distress, which just really isn't a good state to be in.

So logically we know. I know, I'm sure many listeners know that that makes sense, like, okay, you're self medicating, it could be dangerous for us. There's this. And logically we know, wow, it would be great if we could just view what's happening as like we're watching a movie or, you know, just fascinating or just as an observer. But how do we do that? Like, how do we figure out that root cause? And can people do that on their own? Do they need a psychologist like you to help with that? Like, how do we do that?

Yeah, so you've got two different strategies there. One is disassociation. So kind of almost like snapping there, you know, because whenever I ask someone tell me a time, you know, if they're anxious of whatever it is, I'll say, right, can you remember the last time you felt that way? And they're creating an associated memory, so they're in their own body experiencing whatever they felt at the time and that's associated. So you can use this kind of process of disassociation to effectively do it with memories, but you can also do it with future things. Because about 99% of all anxiety is not the anxiety you're feeling in the moment, but it's anxiety that you're reflecting upon that you have experienced in the past or that you're worried about experiencing in the future. So disassociation works really, really well with past memories and future events, because you can do it in that case, but you don't really want to disassociate from your own body when you're in your body experiencing it. That's kind of the opposite of mindfulness. What's more important at that stage, that you're associated into the resources that would be necessary to cope rather than disassociated from the anxiety. But certainly disassociating from anxious memories or future thoughts, that's a useful coping strategy. In terms of the other part, desensitization. Desensitization is a very, very good strategy so long as it's done in a supportive, resourceful way. If someone is afraid of hospitals, for example, and there is a genuine phobia of things like doctors and hospitals and things like that, and if someone said, right, I'm just going to face my fear and they start walking up into a hospital without the right way of thinking about that in a resourceful way and priming them to believe that by doing that they're able to demonstrate that they're in control and they can handle the fear. Well, what's likely to happen is that they could have a full on panic attack, which then provides evidence to them that they were never in control and they couldn't handle it. So desensitization itself isn't really useful unless it's part of a strategic way to break the fear or the anxiety. But it is really good if you can do it in a supportive way. So I used to have a fear of heights, for example, and my form of desensitization was to say, right, what one thing would I have to do that? If I did that thing, then it would make me believe that I don't have that phobia anymore. So skydiving was the thing that popped into my head. So I thought, well, if I can go skydiving, then it's going to be really difficult for me to climb a ladder and feel anxious. So I did the skydive. And that first time there was real anxiety, there was lots of adrenaline. But the second time, and the third time there was no anxiety.

So.

So if it's, if it's done in the right way, you can break the pattern between stimulus and response. And that doesn't have to be a phobia. That can be any anxiety whatsoever.

So, Adam, for example, like, I'm scared of heights and I did that same thing with skydiving and I, it didn't help me. It made me more scared of heights. So it was like, it traumatized me. It was like, okay, I'm. I was so hyper scared the whole time I did it. I was glad I did it, but it didn't break it. So what makes it that different? Like for you, that work. They know you said you did it more than once, but like, what did I do wrong there? That. So I want to learn from this. Like, what. How did I jump into that wrong that it made it reinforce why I'm scared.

Yeah. And that's the key thing. So doing, doing the thing that you're. So, you know, I think it's Susan Jeffers that says, you know, feel the fear and do it anyway. You know, not a good strategy unless it's, unless it's the final piece of the puzzle. So what you want to do is actually experiencing the fear has to be part of what's known as a convince, a strategy. So once you've kind of got these new beliefs, these new ways of thinking about stuff, once you've disassociated from the triggers of anxiety in the past and the future. And then you set it up and say, right, if I can now do that thing, that's the nail in the coffin of that fear. So it's the convince a strategy. It's kind of like, well, if I do that, I can't possibly be afraid. Well, then it's. It's primed in a different way. You would see it as a success. Whereas if you do it and you're like, that was the worst thing ever, well, then all you've now got is you've got new evidence that you. You still are afraid. And then when someone says, oh, do you want to go skydiving? You then associate into a memory of you being absolutely terrified jumping out of a plane, that. That actually is what can create a phobia rather than break a phobia. So it has to be the convince a strategy. It's the last piece of the puzzle.

Got it. Okay, that makes sense. Okay, so how. What is. How did you figure out your formula, like, what you do with people and help me with what we could have people that are really living in their fear and their phobia and their anxiety right now navigate through this right now with what's going on in the world.

Yeah. So the first part of that question, you know, how did I figure it out? I'd love to say, you know, it was easy, but it wasn't. It was a lot of trial and error. It was a lot of testing different things. And, you know, I did lots of these things where I just kind of did it. And then, you know, would have panic attacks and have severe anxiety and then think, well, that hasn't worked. You know, feel like I failed and beat myself up and all this kind of stuff. But basically, it was. It was. I feel, you know, my approach was very pragmatic. It was kind of reading what the experts say, psychologists, all different approach, and then testing it out. And for me, what I found was a combination of changing the beliefs that I had about the fear, accessing resourceful states effectively. So every single person in their life has had a time when they've been courageous, every single time as a person has had a time when they've been highly, highly confident. They've all had experience of going out of their comfort zone and then feeling a sense of positive accomplishment by doing that. So it was a combination, really, of breaking down old belief systems, creating new, more supportive belief systems, having the right metaphors in place. So for me, you know, the old metaphor that I'd created My own prison. Well, genuinely, that's what was happening and that's how I kind of felt at the time. Whereas now, you know, the approaches. Whenever I get that sensation of feeling a bit anxious, I'm like, oh, like a new challenge, you know, and now I have to kind of seek it out. So, you know, overall, it's a combination of breaking beliefs, installing new beliefs, accessing really resourceful states, and then absolutely doing it until the fear goes away and you feel comfortable in that previous uncomfortable situation or. Or just. Or just agreeing that it's not a big enough crucial thing in your life. Avoidance can be a sensible strategy if it's not a big deal. And I would say for those people that are afraid of clowns or afraid of people dressed up in costumes, don't go to the circus and don't go to Disneyland. That is also an okay thing to do to just avoid things. As you said before, though, it's when life gets in the way and avoidance is not a viable strategy, which it isn't right now because of, you know, what's happening in the world, that doesn't really make sense. The tips that I would offer people to actually manage the anxiety, well, there's two different ways. You can manage the root cause and you can manage the symptoms. So in terms of managing the root cause, a useful question really, to get to the root of it is, what circumstances do I actually feel this anxiety, and what are my beliefs about that thing that would need to be there in order for me to feel that way? And when you ask that question, it's a bit of detective work, but what you tend to find out is that there is something which is hugely detrimental. So for people that are, you know, afraid of spiders, for example, the belief is that the spider makes them feel that way, so therefore they don't like the spiders. But to challenge that belief, I would say to them, well, has there ever been a time where you saw something that you thought was a spider, it wasn't a spider, but you had the anxiety anyway, and they're like, oh, yeah, the top of a tomato, a ball of fluff, something like that. And they're like, yeah, I felt the anxiety. Well, then that's evidence that actually it was never the spider that made you feel that way, but the thought processes that you had in your mind that created the anxiety. You can't have a world without spiders, but you can have a world where you have different thought processes, if that kind of makes sense. So for people right now, absolutely freaking out about the coronavirus, Some of those beliefs might be I'm a vulnerable person, therefore I'm at risk of dying. Okay. And it doesn't matter if the belief is true or not, but if that's the dominant belief, then naturally they're going to feel heightened levels of anxiety around that. Or, or it might be that I'm worried for my mum, I'm worried for my dad, my grandparents, okay? Because they perceive that they're more at risk, whatever it might be, but there will be a belief linked to that which is directly related. And then there's a very simple way of saying, well, what are the alternative beliefs that other people believe? Because not every single person feels that way. I've got elderly relatives, but I'm not heightened state of anxiety. So maybe there's other people there that have different beliefs. And the easiest thing to do is to look around, see who isn't freaking out and say, well, you've got elderly relatives, what do you believe about that? And you might find they have got entirely different belief systems. And just by knowing that there is almost like a menu, a choice of different things that you can believe about these things that gets to the root cause in terms of the symptoms. That's a different thing. So you have a question?

No. So how does somebody handle it if they're maybe not the one that's anxious, but like their spouses or their girlfriend or their, their friends. So just to give you an example, I tend to go to anxiety and my husband always goes to not anxious and logic and calm. So when I'm feeling that way, I just want him to listen to me sometimes, like this is what I'm feeling. Let me get that off my chest. But he'll go to logic like the likelihood of you getting it is this. Or like he, he almost gets angry because he's not feeling that way. And that doesn't work dynamic wise because the person that's feeling anxious, me for example, wouldn't actually doesn't respond to that. Like it's because then we don't feel validated or heard. So what is the right way for someone that maybe is in the calm like you, because you know this to handle somebody in their life that tends to go to that anxiety and worry.

Yeah. And I think because I've been at both ends of the spectrum, I've been at such an extreme level of anxiety and now it takes a lot to kind of phase me. I think the first thing, particularly if it's a partner or family member, is kind of accepting that people see the world in Very different ways. And just because you don't feel anxious doesn't mean that other people aren't feeling anxious. So I think it's. It's respecting that. Everyone has their own emotions, first of all, because, you know, I'm sure you've seen people with all kinds of phobias might be a fear of dogs, cats, and you've probably used logic on them. And you say, oh, the spiders, you know, and you're seeing their reaction, you know, and it's kind of. I already know this. You know, the logic doesn't help. So if it doesn't help when you explain it to other people, why would someone else's logic help with you? It doesn't because fear does not operate at the conscious, logical level. It operates at the unconscious level. So, you know, using logic to deal with fear is kind of like using a saw to kind of hammer a nail. It's the wrong tool for the job. Just doesn't help that way. So, one, I think it's. It's acknowledging and validating that people have a right to feel however they feel. But you can help them in two different ways. One, they might not know that there is a belief behind that, and a belief is kind of different. So if you say, right, you know, when did you first feel this way? You know, then suddenly you might get to the root. And back then, what did you think about that thing? You might elicit a belief. And sometimes just by talking that belief through, you know, a lot of us, we have beliefs that are out of date. There was a time that you believed in tooth fairies and Santa Claus. Okay, now the key thing is you've got to imagine, yeah, you've updated that belief system, but you probably have belief systems that you still have that were implanted when you were like three, four years old. Some of them, you know, might need a bit of an update. And sometimes just by talking them through the words coming out of your mouth, you're like, yeah, that doesn't even make any sense anymore. So sometimes you can update the belief systems. The other thing that you can do is to assist in terms of the actual symptoms itself. And a couple of ways of doing it is you can use confusion sometimes. So there is a really powerful principle when it comes to emotional states, and that's called the law of dominant effect. And basically what it means is that you can't feel conflicting emotions simultaneously. So if you see someone really, really anxious, you could ask them a question. That creates a feeling of confusion. They can't feel confused and anxious at exactly the same time. So it's called a pattern interrupt. If you're using kind of NLP language. So, you know, if it's a child, for example, and they're. They're really kind of anxious because they've seen the news or this kind of stuff, you could ask them, you know, what does a particular color smell like? And in order to figure that out, they have to get really confused. But you'll find that they can't be confused and anxious at the same time. And also by messing up that pattern, it becomes then harder for them to feel anxious or you can attract their attention. You know, you could say, do you remember that time when. And it's a positive memory. Well, when they're associated to that positive memory and they're feeling good, well, guess what? They can't simultaneously feel anxious about what's happening as well.

That's cool. That sounds. That's awesome. And I think that's why even right now, comedy or memes almost distract people or puzzles that people are sharing. That makes sense because it is a pattern interrupt. And it changes your. Your process, what you're thinking, what are you, how are you? Because if you were born and really grew up going to anxiety and going to fear and phobias, I'm assuming maybe I'm wrong, that that's your first reaction with things, but you're able to shift yourself out of it faster. So talk me. I want. I'm curious how that works with you, like right now with what's going on in the world. When you first heard this, or when you hear a news blurb or you see something, do you instantly feel that anxiety? And then how do you do this with yourself?

Yeah, honestly, I don't anymore. It's a strange thing. I think I've kind of, you know, been so. Just over years and years, so, you know, conditioned. You know, it's like if you keep exercising, for example, things that used to be tough aren't tough anymore because your body's just kind of used to it. And it's the same thing in your. In your mind. You know, once you think a certain way for long enough, that becomes the new default. So whereas my default used to be straight to anxiety, straight to kind of thinking of all these different scenarios, how it can negatively affect me now, I think it's kind of like, right, can I influence whatever's happening now? For me, very early on, I mean, I have a business with 25 staff. Very early on, it was kind of like, well, this is happening in China. This is happening in different parts of the world. It doesn't affect me. So anxiety is low. Meanwhile, there's some staff researching all the different kind of things, watching YouTube videos of kind of what's happening in Wuhan. They were feeling anxious. That was their default to go to anxiety. Mine was not that relevant to me and my situation. Then when it was evident that it was actually the UK and there's going to be restrictions and things like that, I had a company meeting and I explained to all of them that there's going to be what I just called it harsh realities. You know, some people are going to die from this. Some people are going to have family members that might not make it or get really sick. We might have clients that don't pay. We might have all these kind of things. And we can use that as an excuse if we want, but. But equally, we can control what we do in this situation. And for me, it was kind of addressing that there are real things going on because it can come across really, I think, patronizing or kind of fluffy. If you have people that are kind of positive thinkers and they just say, no, no, no, it's going to be great and everything's good and this is an opportunity for hope and connection and all this kind of thing. And it's kind of like. But you've missed out that key step of accepting that thousands of people are dying, hugely disruptive businesses are failing. There are genuine things that are happening here. So I think you've got to validate and acknowledge what's really happening and then move on to, but where's the silver lining here? What's positive about that? And for me, it was just going through that process very, very quickly and saying, well, look, let's. Let's focus on what we can control, what we can do, how we respond to it, and then look for the positives within that.

And I love that you just shared that, because one thing that has definitely annoyed me is watching some people that were in the space of having a lot of influence or presenting themselves as a leader, almost just acting like nothing's wrong, just either complete avoidance or doing what you're saying, like, oh, let's just be positive and meditate and breathe. And it's like, okay, this is bigger than just meditating and breathing. Like, I think it's important to recognize what's going on and then we can choose how we respond. But I know to me it's almost representing the stages of grief for people. Like, I'm noticing, myself included, there was this initial part of like your reptile brain is acting. So you're in that frozen mode. Like, okay, freeze, and you're a little bit of panic, and then freeze. Like you don't. Almost don't do anything. I didn't want to do anything for two weeks. Like, I was just trying to process. I didn't know what to do with it. And it really did annoy me, personally. When I would see people acting like, this is no big deal, or just take deep breaths, it was like, this is more than that. I think that's important, what you said. There's. It's important to be able to recognize and then shift how we respond to it, but not completely avoid it.

Yeah. Because there's nothing worse than kind of the two extremes. And I think one extreme is kind of this kind of feeling of invincibility or even worse, kind of like fake bravado, which is, you know, kind of like, yeah, you might be worried by this, but I'm not bothered by it. You know, you can't cope. But guess what? I can cope. You know, that just kind of annoys people. And it's not that positive. It's not the inspiring thing that the person doing it thinks it is. It's just kind of. It's a disconnect from reality. But equally at the other end of the spectrum, the kind of the headless chickens, that's not useful either, because you have the principle of social proof. And if people see enough headless chickens, they can become the headless chicken. And that's exactly what we saw with stockpiling everything from toilet paper to food and pasta and all this kind of stuff. You see enough people panicking, you think it's your duty to panic as well and kind of respond accordingly.

Yeah. And it's interesting because I know it doesn't help to point out facts when somebody's in a state of panic, but really that logical. Most people. Most people listening will not get this virus. Most people will not. There's a lot of people that will, but the majority still will not. And it's interesting how we respond to this versus how we responded to swine flu, for instance, which a lot more people got right. And I know that they're totally different things, but the news and the media wasn't in this panic mode, so we weren't feeling that. So it is interesting.

Yeah, it really is. And, you know, I think, you know, there's very early on there was lots of kind of stats and facts about, you know, well, this is how many people die from flu. And this is how many people die from smoking and obesity and hunger and all this kind of stuff. And I think the reality is it wasn't so much about death rates, but I think it's about overwhelm of health infrastructure. And I think that's really what's led to, you know, to the decisions that have been made. But the key thing is more people will be anxious about the disruption to their businesses, the disruption to their lifestyle. You know, the overall, some people are good with change, a lot of people aren't good with change. So that will cause more anxiety than the thought process of I'm going to get sick or I'm going to die from this. I think, you know, any amount of disruption, people get anxious if they're 10 minutes late to get to work. This is change on a whole different level. And I think the positive around this is that people will figure out that they are more resilient to change.

Totally.

That will be the positive.

That's great. Okay, so to sort of. To circle, take this around full circle and wrap this up right now. People listening. If you were to just give them some steps, they're feeling anxious, they're not sleeping well, they've got the worry going on. If you were to just sort of summarize what should they be doing right now to help get them out of that state.

Yeah. So step one really is, you know, and sometimes it's useful to kind of do it just with, you know, a bit of a pen and paper and just put all the things that you're not in control of and just accept those things. Except that, you know, there are scientists out there doing their thing. There'll be people trying to figure out vaccines, there'll be people, you know, in the hospitals doing their thing. You're not in control of any of that. So just accept that you're not in control of that. But then have a list on the other side of the paper of all the things you are in control of. How much news you watch, how much time you spend on social media, you know, the thoughts, recurring thoughts that you have after these kind of things. The phone conversations, the tonality that you have when you're speaking to friends and family members. There is so much within our control, and all of it is inextricably linked to anxiety. The diet, you know, if you're having lots of processed food, if you're having lots of sugar, lots of caffeine, that might make you a bit more anxious. You know, equally, if you're having, you know, if you are doing Meditating, if you are breathing, if you're going for walks, that's also within your control. And there's going to be certain things that help and there's going to be certain things that don't. So I think overall, on a very pragmatic level, doing an audit, figuring out that just by feeling in control of certain things gives a sense of empowerment, which can actually massively reduce anxiety. I think the second thing is kind of reflecting on the belief systems. What do you genuinely believe is the biggest consequence? And for most people, anxiety is a perceived consequence that affects either them or the people they care about. So what is it that you are anxious about? Is it about your business, about your income? Is it about, you know, disruption to your social life? Is it about, you know, a potential health threat to you or someone you care about? But hone in because when you know, when you actually address what the fear is and where it's coming from, so much easier to deal with than if this. It's like in horror movies. The key thing is for about two, two thirds of the movie, you never even see what the monster is. You don't even see what the threat. And not knowing what the threat is is more scary than when you actually see what the monster is. Once you define it and you know what it is, somehow that's more manageable when, if it's just this overall sense of, oh, there's something out there when it's very ominous. So I think doing a bit of an audit and just figuring out what is it that's causing the anxiety massively helps to actually deal with that.

Super helpful. And the very first thing you said about the two lists, the list about control and not control. That's the second time listeners have heard that. I just did an interview recently with Rhonda Britton, which is a very different interview than with you, but she suggested that same thing. So we've heard that twice now, which means there's really something to it. So I think today is a day that I definitely make that list for sure. Adam, this was super helpful today. Where can people find you and learn more about what you do and your resources?

Yeah, so I would say that the best place to find me is phobiaguru.com and I've got a different page for every single phobia that exists, and there's hundreds of phobias, and I've got like a little video there for each different phobia just to kind of explain what it is. And there are phobias out there that people might have that they don't realize that you can get rid of fairly quickly. So the ones that directly relate to coronavirus, fear of germs, fear of hospitals, fear of people, you know, all these kind of things. So go to phobiaguru.com I've got a free 60 minute video that just kind of explains what phobias are, how quickly they can be eliminated. And I guess the final thing really to say is that I work with people all over the world. It's exactly this setup that we've got here with the microphone and the camera. You know, I've got clients in the States and in Dubai and Australia and all over the place. I think the world is getting smaller and that means that people that can help people can connect with people that need that help much easier than ever before.

This was so helpful. Adam, thank you so much for doing this today and for being with us.

More than welcome. Thank you for the invite.

Thanks for leveling up with us today. Please share this episode if you found it helpful so others can join in. And don't forget to hit that subscribe so you don't miss out on future shows. And if you would leave me a five star review. I appreciate those so much. I read all of them and it's how I know that I'm giving you information that you find valuable. And come interact with me over on Instagram @nataliejofit. I read all the direct messages and comments over there. Make it a great day. Creating everything from nothing.