Start With A Win - Learning How to Effectively Deal with Stress

Episode Date: April 28, 2021

On this episode of the Start With A Win podcast, Adam talks to SWAW producer Mark with a hot round of interview questions. They include questions about friendship, relaxation, and how to deal with stress. Mark initiates the conversation with the question, "Who is your oldest friend, and how did you meet them?" Mark and Adam share a bit about their oldest and closest friendships, dating back to their early childhoods.Adam and Mark also dig into how stress affects us. Mark says you can’t think clearly when stressed, which often results in making bad decisions. He has seen the most growth in pushing through stress as opposed to trying to avoid it. Avoiding stress can cause depression. Stop worrying and start doing, Adam says.Stress, Planning, Action—the SPA acronym for how to deal with stress. Much like the word spa itself, this tool is designed to help people push through stressful situations instead of avoiding them altogether.Action overcomes stress. Reviewing the stressful environment perpetuates stress. The best way to deal with stressful situations is to make a plan for what you’re going to do next. And it is in the action that real moments of growth and learning unfold. Adam and Mark reveal their own thoughts about how this strategy can help you reap more out of your life. Stress is a killer, so we need more chances to survive.Connect with Adam:https://www.startwithawin.com/https://www.facebook.com/REMAXAdamContoshttps://twitter.com/REMAXAdamContoshttps://www.instagram.com/REMAXadamcontos/ Leave us a voicemail:888-581-4430

Every day is filled with choices. You're here because you're choosing to Start With A Win. Get ready to be inspired, learn something new, and connect with the win nation. Coming to you from Start With A Win Studios, it's Adam Kanto, CEO of Remax. Here with Start With A Win and producer Mark. Hang on. How you doing, buddy? So good.

Now that I've heard that. Hey, I got something here. I got Brand Viva podcasting cards. Oh, whoa. Better conversations one card at a time. That's my little... It's like a game. It's like a family game.

Yeah, we got our cards here. I'm pretty good at shuffling, so watch out. Are they going to fly in everywhere? No, no. Okay. All right, so here we go. We got two kinds of questions here. We have would you rather questions or open-ended questions.

It's your lucky day. It is an open-ended question. So who is your oldest friend and where did you meet them? I guess that could go kind of two ways, right? Like on one hand, it could be like you have a friend who's like 100 years old. Yeah, that's true. What is your definition of oldest friend? I mean, I guess it could be like for me, one of my oldest friends, a friend that I've had the longest.

I met when I was 10 years old when I moved here to Colorado to live with my dad. I met him when I was 10 and him and I were just had that like best bud soul connection, like right away when we were kids. And to this day, we're still close buddies and we connect with each other from time to time. And we don't see each other as much as we, you know, would like, but it's a good time. So do you have to like regularly see your friends in person or can they still be friends yeah well i mean my best friend i maybe only see once a year he lives in texas and we don't maybe even only talk like in text maybe five to ten times a year but it's one of

those things where you know when you have that connection with somebody it's like they're kind of always a friend you know and it's like you don't need them to validate you constantly like hey i'm your friend i'm your friend they are. You just know that you guys can just pick up where you left off. That's cool. Yeah. So what about you? What, who's your, do you have a, do you have a super old friend or a friend that you've known for the longest that you still stay in touch with? I do have a friend who's like 86 years old. His name's John. Cool dude. And I'll tell you, you're like, holy smokes. Is this guy? I mean, he's like a, just like a freight train. He just like chugging down the road of life keeps going and a pretty cool. And then, uh,

the friend I've had the longest, uh, here in Colorado, I actually went to preschool with him. Oh, wow. Okay. You got me beat then. Yeah. Look at me. Look at the gray. That was a long time ago. So, uh, he's, but, uh, I mean, we haven't seen each other in person for quite some time, but I see him on Facebook and I know he sees me on Facebook, things like that. And I'm actually still, um, cause because I grew up in the Denver area, I still have a lot of very close friends that I was in elementary school with. Oh, wow, that's cool. That still live around the area here

and I run into on occasion. So it's pretty neat. It's just one of those things, right? You see each other and it's like, hey, what's up? You just have this instant connection. And then it's like, it's okay if you don't see each other or talk for a while, you know? Totally, totally.

And then I have, I just have these friends from different experiences in life that some of the experiences are more deep than others like my law enforcement life uh some of those friends you were in really really bad situations with and there's this bond that is formed in in like a combat situation that you'll never forget and it's i've got quite a few of those. I run into them every now and then, uh, around the community at the gym, things like that. And then I also have some friends that I spend a significant amount of time with that have meant a lot in my life. Like Dave Linegar, for instance. He's a good friend. Oh, totally. Great friend. Great friend.

So that's awesome. That's a cool question. It really, it kind of touches your heart when you think about it, when you start thinking about all those friends. So thank you for sharing that Mark. Hey, yeah, my pleasure. I have to break out my deck of cards. I've got one of those. I know you do. You gave me one of those. I'll let you pick the card next time. Okay. I will do that. So, hey, Mark, we talked about friends. Do you want to talk? Friends are good thoughts, but we go through stressful situations with our friends.

And I have my spa thing here. You're de-stress-er. Yes. But I want to talk about going to the spa, but I want to talk about stress. Okay? I mean, kind of opposite ends of the spectrum, but, but I don't mean like literally going to like this kind of spa where it smells like eucalyptus and we sit on rubber mats on the floor and things like that or foam roll or so my spa experience where this came from, this came from Miraval,

which is a spa resort in Tucson. They have a few different locations around the country. Shout out to that place. I mean, if you want to go get away, sit in the desert, this Tucson desert, but in like a, you know, a very, very nice, like a hotel ish type of place and do spa stuff. We even did like this hanging yoga with these silk things. And it's really awkward and feels really weird, but it like does something for you and it brings you back. Yeah. That's awesome. Yeah.

I mean, talk about de-stressing and you know what? You can't have your phone with you there. Oh man. They give you a sleeping bag for your phone. The detox it. Yeah. It's,

it did this little mini cloth sleeping bag that you put your phone in. You slide it in there and you're like, Hey, it. Yeah. It's a little mini cloth sleepy bag that you put your phone in. You slide it in there and you're like, Hey, it's asleep. That's awesome. So you put your phone to sleep, put your phone to sleep and you, you find yourself,

but focus in. Yeah. That's, I mean, it's, it's interesting because, um, I mean,

first of all, let's go back. Let me put on the spectacles here. Okay. Yep. Cause I have three things I want to read. Yes. put on the spectacles here. Okay. Yep. Because I have a couple of things I want to read. Yes. It's reading time.

We got some notes here. Yeah. So we're going to talk about stress. So before we talk about stress, I did a little research on stress. I like to research the things I talk about. And Merriam-We Webster, Webster dictionary, Paul Deal Webster dictionary. An authority in words and language.

Theoretically, we gave Miriam Webster the ability to define things for us, whether or not we agree with them. But anyhow, so they basically, I mean, if you look it up in webster's dictionary it basically talks about pressures or focusing on something so if you think about like adding weight

to something that's a pressure right and that creates stress or pressures emotionally that creates stress or actually like focusing on a point like like I'm stressing that point. So it mostly talked about those things in general. But the reality is that I'm not quite sure that I fully agree with those because I think it's deeper than that. I think it's deeper than putting pressure on or focusing on. I found this other definition from Very Well Mind, a website. It's kind of a, I think a yoga type, you know,

holistic type thing, but stress can be defined as any type of change that causes physical emotion or emotional or psychological strain. Stress is your body's response to anything that requires attention or action, attention or action. And it says your body's response to anything that requires attention or action. And it says your body's response to anything that requires attention or action. So think about that when we talk about stress, because we do a lot of thinking about stress in

our lives. And we think about, oh my gosh, this is stressing me out. Have you ever seen somebody say that? Or maybe you've mentioned it yourself? Yeah. I'm so stressed right now. This is totally stressing me out. And what are we focusing on when we're talking about that? The stress? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's, by the way, Mark, this all stemmed from some videos you sent me recently.

Because Mark and I sell, we send a lot of holistic stuff to each other. We're like, oh, this made me feel good. And, you know, this made me think.. And you know, it, this made me think this made me happy. This made me wonder whatever it might be. But some of the stuff that was talked about in some of these different videos was what are you focusing on and how do you take and turn stress into something good? Because ultimately when we think about the word stress, we think about something bad and we blame, which is our default. You know, we're like shame on, you know, this political party or this person or this group or this state or this, you know, viewpoint or whatever. Everybody blames people.

But the reality is blame is natural, but you got it backwards. Blame is supposed to come last. What do we blame in order to fix? Right? So, you know, in order to fix, so if we fix something, then we can go back and do an after action report or a postmortem on something. And then we can figure out what is the blame, which is basically the cause of stress. It's not attacking a human being, which so many people reverted to. So I want to kind of dig into that a little bit. But ultimately, what does stress do? This is kind of fun because how do you view stress, Mark, when you say this is stressing me out? And I know you're kind of a wide open thinker

here. So I want to kind of get your perspective on this. When you think about stress, what do you, what comes next in stress? Is it avoidance or is it what? You know, for me, it's, it's actually pushing into, when I was younger, I would say when I would get stressed, I wouldn't even know how to deal with it, right? I would just, it would almost get angry, you know, like I'd get angry or frustrated or something like that. But now that I'm an old man, you know, I recently turned 40 a couple weeks ago. But I would say over the past like five years or so, stress has been more of like a trigger for me. When I start to feel that, it makes me perk up and say, oh, I need to evaluate this situation. Like, why am I feeling stressed? And a lot of

times I would say that the reason why I feel stress is because I'll put unknown expectations on myself. Things that maybe haven't come to fruition, I'll think about maybe in a worst case scenario way. And then those things that aren't even real or true, trigger a stress response in me. And so a lot of times when I start to feel stressed now, what I like to do is kind of pause, and then really think about the situation that I'm in and say, Okay, why am I, I stressed right now? Because stress, stress is not healthy for you, right? I mean, it's, it's, uh, actually very bad for you as far as, um, some of the hormones and things like that, that it triggers, uh, within you.

Um, and then it helps stress. Um, you know, you, you can't think clearly when you're stressed, you're making bad decisions, you know, when you're stressed. You said a couple of things that are really good here. First of all, you, you stop and think about it. And, but you also said stress is not good for you. You know, it's stress in its, in and of itself, when you sit in stress is not necessarily good for you, but when you, when you move from stress, it's good for you because it, it's, it's an interesting concept. I looked into the psychology of this, but I want to, I want to start with one thing and that's that we have to deal with stress. Okay. And you didn't say avoiding stress necessarily is your overall goal. No, I want to push through it really. Like

I want to get to the other side of whatever is, is stressful. And that's where I've seen the most growth in my life, right? Like when I don't give up or avoid it or whatever it is, but I push into it. And then when I come out on the other side, I'm a better person. I've, I learned something and I've grown as an individual. Correct. So let me just get this part out of the way when it comes to stress. If we avoid stress, we cause depression. Okay? So running from stress causes depression. It's been proven.

So those that lock themselves up in a dark room and go, I'm not going to deal with it, that's actually where depression comes from a lot of times. It's fascinating. I was researching this. I'm going, whoa. Okay. So you look at like COVID and things like that. All these people have been like, I'm just going to lock myself up.

But you also look at the suicide rates and depression and things like that have, have skyrocketed. And that's because people aren't dealing with the stress itself. They're not creating solutions out of the stress or finding a new, new portion of themselves. So, um, I found a quote by our friend James clear, um,

who wrote atomic habits. Uh, and this is really good. The anxiety of worry is almost always worse than the actual consequences. Stop worrying and start doing. Stop worrying and start doing. It's hard not to worry. Yeah. So here's an interesting thing. I'm going to read a little excerpt here from a Berkeley associate professor. It says, you always think about stress as a really bad thing, but it's not.

It says, Daniela Kaufer, associate professor of integrative biology at the University of California, Berkeley. Quote, some amounts of stress are good to push you just to the level of optimal alertness, behavioral, and cognitive performance. Kaufer noted that exposure to acute intense stress can sometimes be harmful, leading, for example, to PTSD. Further research could help to identify the factors that determine whether a response to stress is good or bad. Quote, I think the ultimate message is an optimistic one, she concluded. Stress can be something that makes you better, but it is a question of how much, how long,

and how you interpret or perceive it. I think that last part is the most important aspect. How do you interpret or perceive it? Because we can all deal with different levels of stress, but we have to deal with stress in order to be better. In fact, they did studies where they took rats, of course. You know, what do you study? You study rats. They put stresses on the rats.

And what they found is when they stress the rats, it creates more action-taking capabilities in the brain of the rats by creating these different proteins and things like that through the chemical releases that the stresses create. So by creating stress, they create problem-solving capabilities. Think about that. Creating stress and dealing with it creates problem-solving capabilities. So I came up with this acronym, and it has to do with the SPA.

All right. You like that? I love a good acronym. Okay. So in SPA, S-P-A, S-P-A. So when you think about this, when you look at what should I do when I deal, how do I deal with stress? That's ultimately what we should be thinking deal, how do I deal with stress? That's ultimately what we should be thinking about. How do I deal with stress? Because if you try to avoid stress, you're going to find depression. We've established that. But is there a way to win from stress? Because I look at stress as opportunity. I'm programming myself every single day, stress equals opportunity. Stress equals opportunity. Stress equals opportunity. And what we think about, we can create results from. What we focus on, I'm stressing that, we can create results from. So here's a very simple formula, stress planning, action. Ooh, I like that. Spa

stress planning, planning action. Now, sometimes you can switch, you can skip the planning part. You just take action. I mean, like if you're about to get in a car crash, you don't want to stop and go, okay, what should I be doing here? Yeah. You're going saw you're going to address the action. You're going saw not spot. That's right. That's it. Jump right into that action part. But the reality is, and I used to teach personal safety courses all the time, and that was observations, options, actions. Observations, options, actions. It's the same thing, stress, planning, action. So ultimately, what we have to do is we have to figure out a way in order to go from I'm overwhelmed to I have a plan.

And that's the shift that has to be made in the human mind in order to overcome stress. Now, we've all dealt with a lot of stress lately. There's no doubt about that. It could be your kids are sitting across the kitchen table from you doing, you know, schoolwork or whatever. You're working from home. You're scared about the virus, whatever it is. But if you just sit there and go, ah, this sucks. And you never get to planning or options, you can never take action. So you just got to figure out what should I do? What should I do? And it's fascinating because I was, you know, in, in listening to how thinking works, how thought works, when you study that thought is actually like a tree,

your brain functions like thoughts are trees and you think you observe, you act type situation. And it's like you observe these branches in your brain of options. And then you go down one of these branches. But you got this tree trunk, which is the situation. And you just got to pick one of your branches from there. Where do I go? What do I do? It's not always going to be right. But it was like Eisenhower. I think it was Eisenhower that said during World War II,

it's not the plan that is so valuable. It's the action of planning that is invaluable because that causes thought, creates thought, and it helps you work your way through the situation. Therefore, you have action to take. Action overcomes stress. Action overcomes stress. What perpetuates stress? Reviewing the stressful environment and worrying about it.

So that's, I mean, when you think about life in general, how do we create success? The most successful people on this planet have incredible stress on them. Incredible stress. I can't remember who it is, but there's like, you know, there's this rule of thumb, more money, more problems. Yeah. I think that wasn't that Biggie. Yeah.

Yes. More money. The rap song, more money, more problems. It's problems it's true yeah more money more problems i mean bam that's that's correct i mean you could also say uh less money more problems too but the reality is you're not going to here's the thing you're not going to get rid of your problems, but you can turn them into opportunities. They're always going to grow. They're always going to grow. So we have to make a trip to the spa when we have this stress.

Stress, planning, action. And ultimately, what is stress? Stress is the emotion of fear also, right? It's worrying about the unknown, the unknown future. How do you overcome fear? Action. way of thinking, or, you know, we, we, we think about something and it's not right. But when we educate ourselves maybe and learn, you know, even something like, you know, a lot of people are afraid to make videos, right. And they're, they're afraid because there's all these unknowns, right. But as soon as they educate themselves and they, they, uh, kind of reveal the mystery, it's like, oh, that's not so bad. It's not so stressful. It's not so intimidating, you know?

And so it's really like shining light onto that, that worry or that fear, educating yourself, and then you can move into action, you know? 100%. Simple formula, spa. Simple spa. We got to go to the spa more often. Everybody's got to go to the spa. And get one of these handy little things while you're at it. You know, you know what this does? This is like a mind trigger. When you, when you get to the yoga room, the spa, whatever, and you close your eyes, you take a couple of deep breaths and they go, it's kind of clarifying. It does.

It gets you right into that, that headspace. It's, and then it's fascinating. You got to have a, you create a trigger for yourself because stress is going to happen. You know what I do? I always create a trigger for myself.

And that trigger is generally like some piano music or something like that. Like I've, I've even got some Baroque. Yeah. I've got a little bit going here. I like that. I just put this on. How can you,

how can you not be happy with that going on? It's just, you can't, the stress goes away. It lifts your spirits. Yeah. And then maybe you ring that bell on top of that piano. You just got that for free, ladies and gentlemen.

All right. There we go. That's good. I feel good now. Hey, I'm ready to record another podcast. Right on. All right. Well, Mark, hey, I got a question for you.

Yeah. How do you start your day with a win, buddy? My day starts at the gym. So my feet hit the floor. I have my bag packed from the day before and I headed to the gym and that gives me a solid, usually an hour and a half, two hours to just think about my day, think about things that are going on and, you know, kind of center myself to take things on. Mark, thank you for being on Start With A Win today. Hey, man, I'm here every day. Hey, and everyone who tuned in on Facebook, uh, thank you guys for, for popping over and, uh, saying hi and, uh, checking us out. Uh, if you want more video

content of start with the wind, head over to YouTube. Uh, we're gonna, you can get condensed versions of the show and you can also catch us when we go live just like this over on YouTube. Also, if you're curious about other types of content and blog posts and resources, things like that, head over to startwithawin.com. And we don't get many voicemails, but we do get some from time to time. But if you'd like to maybe call and give us your Start With A Win story, you can leave us a voicemail at 888-581-4430. Adam, people can find you on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter. I mean, pretty much anywhere. So until next time, start with a win.