The People, Process, & Progress Podcast - 7 Pillars Field Guide Audiobook

Episode Date: April 24, 2025

This episode is an audiobook-like version of the 7 Pillars Field Guide. This 7 Pillars Field Guide distills the key, actionable tools and techniques from The Stability Equation into one-page summaries of each of the seven pillars: ownership, mindfulness, movement, boundaries, connection, sleep, and faith.Godspeed y'all,Kevin

Hey everybody, this is your host Kevin Pennell of the People Process Progress Podcast. Thanks for coming back. Thanks for reading the Stability Equation if you've had a chance to and for checking out the Seven Pillars Field Guide that's free on the PeopleProcessProgress.com website. And today on this Fix It Friday, I'm going to read all 11 pages of the Seven Pillars Field Guide. But first, please silence your cell phones. Hold all sidebar conversations to a minimum, let's get logged in and get locked on to this episode of the People Process Progress Podcast in

3, 2, 1 Sometimes we need answers fast. That's why I created this quick reference guide, Seven Pillars Field Guide. The intent of this book is to give the reader the bottom line up front when it comes to taking ownership, becoming more mindful, getting regular movement, setting and pushing your boundaries, creating new or re-establishing human connections, and improving your evening wind down routine and sleep hygiene, and developing your own faith. I have listened to, watched, and read every resource I shared in the Stability Equation book

and have used all the tools in this field guide. To dig deeper into the tools or to learn more about how I discovered them, read the Stability Equation, which is available on Kindle, Paperback, and Hardcover on Amazon. To dive into these tools and techniques that will help you become a more overall balanced person,

read on and act. More at PeopleProcessProgress.com Pillar 1. Taking Ownership Taking ownership means looking inward and into the mirror and not fully depending on outside people to help you live a more fulfilled life. I don't mean discount others, I mean Pillar 5 Connection is all about relationships with other humans. What I mean is you are where you are and if you're reading this, you may not like where you are.

So step one and Pillar 1 is ownership. So we're gonna start simple and take a big step in our ownership. Draw a table, two columns. At the top of the left column, right helping me. At the top of the left column write helping me, at the top of the right column write not helping me. This is you truly owning where you are in life and where you want to get to. Don't lie to yourself and don't sugarcoat the message. Now fill out this table because we're going to come

back to it in a little bit. Pillar 2 – Becoming More Mindful Mindfulness is not meditation. Meditation is a practice that helps you become more mindful. You can also become more mindful by sitting on a park bench, leaving your phone in your pocket and just watching and listening. I found part of my mindfulness practice also included calming my anxious, nervous, scared or overwhelmed mind. Below are tools that I've used many times to help calm myself during acute bouts of panic and over time to develop a more mindful approach to life.

Acute Stress Management The 5-4-3-2-1 Grounding Method Think of and say inwardly, five things you can see, 4 things you can touch, 3 things you can hear, 2 things you can smell, and 1 thing you can taste. The tapping technique. For 3 rounds, you're going to tap 7 times each on your forehead, next to your eye, under your eye, above your lips, below your lips, on your collarbone, below your armpit, and on the meaty side of your hand. The dare response. D is for diffuse.

Diffuse the thoughts that you have that are anxious. You're catastrophizing and say, so what? A is for allow. Allow the thoughts to come without judgment. R is run. Run towards by reframing anxiety into excitement. And E is for engage. Engage in an activity like walking or doing chores to burn off that energy.

I highly recommend you look up the Day Response online and read that book. Longer Term tools. Meditation. In a quiet place, take three breaths in your nose and let the breath out of your mouth each time. Now close your eyes and just listen. Do a mental scan of your body. Notice where the tension is. Notice where any aches are. Notice where you're relaxed. Now start paying attention to your breath. Now count your breath. In is one, out is two.

Count up to ten and do that for a few minutes and then open your eyes. That's meditation. Journaling. You can free write whatever comes to mind. Get a piece of paper, buy a journal, but just write. Don't edit your thoughts. Don't try and have perfect grammar. Just write. Another helpful tool in the evening is called a worry log. You can use the same journal and just tell it that it's worries. And what you do is you say, here are the things that I'm worried about today, that I'm thinking about today, but don't just leave it there and then say, and I believe I can find the solution this way.

Pillar 3. Getting regular movement. Exercise has been shown to be as or more effective than medications to reduce stress and anxiety and to pull people out of depression. Exercise in an area you must take ownership of if you want to see results. It's up to you and you can do it. Are you not sure where to start with moving and getting exercise? Here are some movements and types of exercises that have helped me get in shape and stay in shape even into my early 50s as I've logged thousands of hours in my garage gym and on the jujitsu mats.

Walking. When you're anxious, in the morning, at lunch, in the evening, after dinner, move a muscle, change of thought. Bodyweight exercises. Push-ups, pull-ups, crunches, air squats, mountain climbers, burpees, planks, 4 count flutter kicks. If you don't know what some of these movements are, throw them in a search engine and you will find plenty of good examples. Weightlifting. Muscle gain and strength has been shown to increase longevity and all the heavy hitters

in the wellness space online and on YouTube and podcasts all espouse the value of building muscle and that's for men and women. So weightlifting a barbell that's the long bar squats, bench press, deadlift, overhead press, bent over rows and hang cleans. Again look up these movements particularly on the CrossFit YouTube channel they have amazing example videos. Dumbbells these are the short bars with weights on each side. Curls, bent over rows, goblet squats, chest fly, triceps, extensions and there are many many more but these will get

you started. And kettlebells these are those little cannonballs with handles on them. Swings, squat swings, gorilla cleans or just carry them around in a farmer's carry. Again, CrossFit and also on it, O-N-N-I-T, have excellent programs and videos so you can see examples of this live. Or you could go to the Penelphi Fitness Club YouTube channel that I am on where I also show my workouts of the day and some jujitsu after action. So let's talk about functional fitness. There's something called a wall ball where you throw a ball up in the air and some jujitsu after action. So let's talk about functional fitness. There's something called a wall ball

where you throw a ball up in the air and you catch it. Box jumps, knee ups, weighted lunges. This is kind of more movement things and not necessarily strict Olympic press or hardcore gym weightlifting. Road and track work, jog, run, hill run, hill sprints, track repeats, hiking, any sort of movement we can get out and move through the world especially in nature is very beneficial.

Yoga. Yoga is a key staple of my recovery routine. Do it in the morning, do it for a recovery focus, a strength focus, a balance focus, a mobility focus. If you look on YouTube for yoga for the kind of result you're trying to get there are amazing providers out there and I will mention Sarah Beth yoga, Yoga with Adrienne, Yoga with Bird, Yoga for BJJ which is Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, Breathe and Flow, there are so many others but those are yoga providers on YouTube that I use often. Pillar four. Setting and pushing boundaries. Sometimes people suck. When they suck, it's often helpful to create a boundary between us and them.

Sometimes we suck. When we suck, we need to create boundaries between us and a habit that's bad for us. Too much gaming, too much alcohol, on our devices all day, and on and on. Other times we've set boundaries for ourselves that we don't think we can break, but we set them, right? So now we're gonna make a three column table. In the first top left column header, put start. In the middle say stop, and on the right put keep doing. This will help you determine which boundaries you need to set for yourself and which boundaries you have already set that you should push through and things that you're doing well that you

don't need to change. Again like in the ownership assessment this is no nonsense this is you talking to you and you don't need to filter in. Breathing and cold have also helped me push my own boundaries of comfort and I believe that they can for you too. So I do Wim Hof breathing two or three times a week and here's what rounds of that look like. You breathe in your nose and out of your mouth 30 times. About three quarters of the way through the 30th out breath

you hold your breath for a minute. At the one minute mark you breathe in and hold that for 15 seconds. Then we're gonna breathe normal for about 30 seconds and we'll repeat the cycle two more times with 30 in 30 out. Hold the breath but we're gonna try and hold our breath for a minute and a half for the second two sequences in those sets, three sets. When you're done, shake your hands, move around a little bit, be slow to get up. The other exposure that I do that's from Wim Hof is cold. I started taking cold showers a few years ago, then I started regularly cold plunging and I bought a cold plunge that stays cold all the time. It's excellent for days that I'm not doing weightlifting to try and get strong

and big when I'm recovering from jiu-jitsu or run or I've done high impact work or something like that and it's really an amazing mental resilience and recharge or charge up for the day. So I'll say next time you take a shower, turn the water kind of lukewarm for 30 seconds and try a little bit colder each day. Pillar 5. Making human connections. Humans are not meant to be alone. Even self-became loners at some point crave and require human connection. When these connections are made, it's important for us to be in the moment and not try to be physically present

while we're mentally and electronically thousands of miles away. Blower mindsets that have helped me that I believe can help you improve the connections you have and create new ones. When you are in person, be present. Shake hands, put your phone away, make eye contact, and look at the person. Engage your senses. Take in the moment's environment with all your senses. Look around. Smell. Hear. Feel. Seek shared experiences and say yes. Play sports, join clubs, go to church, take a trip, meet for dinner, coach a sports team. Practice empathy. Listen to understand, verify the message you've been given, and then ask questions.

Don't just wait to say what you want to say. In the virtual connections world, we need to set limits. On our phone, the TV, the laptop. Set X number of hours per day. Prune your friends list. If you've never hung out in person, or wouldn't, is someone truly your friend. Limit exposure to comments. You can't make everyone happy, and that's okay. 2. Clean your feed. Proactively control the algorithm by removing negative content and spam. Don't let the algorithm control you.

3. Pillar 6. Improving your sleep hygiene. Eating, drinking, noise, and light within 1-2 hours before bed will have a negative effect on how most people can or will fall asleep. Practicing what's called sleep hygiene combined with pillar 2 mindfulness will drastically improve how you fall asleep, whether you stay asleep, or can help you get yourself back to sleep if you wake up.

So I'm going to describe an optimal routine. At the beginning of the day, wake up. At the same time most days. Give thanks to your higher power. That's pillar 7 faith for me. Make your bed. Get that first wind of the day. Get some sunshine if possible. Or turn on the bright lights. And get your movement in. If you can help it, 6 or 7 hours before bed, don't drink caffeine. 1 to 2 hours before bed, stop eating and drinking, stop watching TV or playing games, minimize phone use, turn down the bright lights, turn down the thermostat, Complete your worry journal. 15 to 30 minutes before bed. Do some stretching on your own or a short PM yoga routine. Also don't forget to musk up with your lavender essential oils. At bedtime consider a wind down

routine. I use the Headspace app and they play muscle relaxation exercises or music or something. It's very helpful Again, this is an optimal routine that can't fit into every day for the rest of your life and as you get better at sleeping as your sleep improves as you become more stable through your mindfulness and you can manage your Anxiety you'll be able to let some of these move a little bit here and there But mostly you should wake up at the same time time You should go to bed at a decent time. You should limit eating and drinking within hours before going to bed and other stimuli but if you're listening to this or if you've read this stability equation book and You're struggling with your sleep. You need to be very strict about it

Pillar seven building Building Your Faith. Your faith is yours alone. You may have learned a particular way to practice based on a religion, but how often you pray, what you believe, and whom you choose to follow is all on you. Like many, my journey of faith has been a roller coaster. At times I'm all in. Other times I've raged at the sky. In recent years, I've come full circle back to my chosen religion, Catholicism and Christianity.

I like the traditional way of the mass and the traditional music. I'm a bit old school that way. I also realize and appreciate that not everyone agrees on religion. That's okay. To help you determine or reaffirm what you do and don't believe, consider the self-reflections. Inward focus. Ask yourself what you're looking for in a belief system. Think about what you liked about faith you've seen in other people. Think about what you haven't appreciated from a religious belief system. Read sacred texts like the Bible, the Koran, the Torah, the Bhagavad Gita, etc. to

learn more. If you're looking outwardly, research and visit houses of worship in your area to get a feel for services and environment. Attend services of all kinds so you can better compare the messages of those who delivered them. Call someone you know that has strong faith and that you feel comfortable asking what they believe, why, and how they came to their conclusions. I've been Kevin Pennell, and I'm the author of the Stability Equation, 7 Pillars for a More Balanced Life, the host of the People Process podcast you're listening to, and of the Pennelli Fitness Club YouTube channel where I share fitness tips 15 seconds at a time, jujitsu class after action reports,

and of course validate my cold plums because if I didn't put a video did I really do it. So this guide distills key actionable tools and techniques right from the full book the stability equation that dives into those and shares more resources from people I learned from. a stability equation that dives into those and shares more resources from people I learned from. And the pillars, again, are ownership, mindfulness, movement, boundaries, connection, sleep, and faith. So if you need quick answers, this is available on the website, peopleprocessprogress.com forward slash the stability equation.

It's on that page. Click on the picture of the cover. In addition to being an author, I've been doing program and project management for over 25 years. I did military medicine as a hospital corpsman in the US Navy, public safety response as a volunteer firefighter and professional EMS captain and public safety incident management coordinator. And now I work in healthcare information technology, helping do strategic planning and tactical project completion. I live in Southwest Virginia with my wife, three sons, two dogs.

I train Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. I am a salty blue belt and I enjoy regular workouts in my garage gym and living in the mountains of Southwest Virginia and I love hearing from each of you. And if you want to contact me, I'm on LinkedIn, Kevin Pennell. You can follow me on Instagram at x at Pennell KG, P-A-N-N-E-L-L-K-G. Follow the Pannell 5 Fitness Club YouTube channel. Subscribe to this podcast everywhere podcasts are. Pick up the Stability Equation, Seven Pillars for a More Balanced Life on Amazon.

It's available on Kindle, paperback, and hardcover. And there's going to be a sale coming up starting on May 2nd. Thank you. Please reach out. There's a contact form on the People Process Progress website. I appreciate the feedback I get from everybody on all these platforms. I hope you're doing the best. Stay safe out there. Wash your hands and Godspeed.