Welcome to Bettermental’s first episode! Mike and Leanna are excited to be back recording together again in person. In this episode, they introduce a three-part mini-series on stress, exhaustion, and burnout.
Starting with stress, they dive into exactly what it is, what it looks like for business owners (and themselves!), and several in-depth tips for recognizing and managing it. You’ll leave this episode with questions to ask yourself, strategies like brain dumps, worry lists, and gut checks to try, and a list of further resources to check out.
In this episode, we discuss:
Prefer to skim? Here’s our episode transcription!
Mentioned in the episode:
The Body Keeps The Score by Bessel A. Van der Kolk
Getting Things Done by David Allen
Gut Checks by Leanna Lee
Want to hear more from Mike and Leanna? Every month, we’ll be sharing our own content based on each Bettermental episode. Don’t miss Mike’s latest videos and Leanna’s mental health and business articles!
And we’d love to keep in touch. Connect with us on Twitter @leannalost and @mikeveny.
Welcome to Bettermental’s first episode! Mike and Leanna are excited to be back recording together again in person. In this episode, they introduce a three-part mini-series on stress, exhaustion, and burnout.
Starting with stress, they dive into exactly what it is, what it looks like for business owners (and themselves!), and several in-depth tips for recognizing and managing it. You’ll leave this episode with questions to ask yourself, strategies like brain dumps, worry lists, and gut checks to try, and a list of further resources to check out.
In this episode, we discuss:
Prefer to skim? Here’s our episode transcription!
Mentioned in the episode:
The Body Keeps The Score by Bessel A. Van der Kolk
Getting Things Done by David Allen
Gut Checks by Leanna Lee
Want to hear more from Mike and Leanna? Every month, we’ll be sharing our own content based on each Bettermental episode. Don’t miss Mike’s latest videos and Leanna’s mental health and business articles!
And we’d love to keep in touch. Connect with us on Twitter @leannalost and @mikeveny.
Mike V:
What do I need right now? This is what I call the reparenting question because you get
to reparent yourself here and be like a parent. Sometimes you need to just simply get a
glass of water. Sometimes you need to stop checking email. Sometimes you need to turn
off your phone. Sometimes you need to say, "You know what? I need to go for a walk."
Sometimes you need to say "I need to must through this project and just really focus
hard, then do blank." But the idea is that you start to gain awareness around your
feelings. Over time, this will make you so much more productive as a business owner.
*INTRO MUSIC*
Mike V: Welcome back to Bettermental. My name is Mike Veny and I'm here with my lovely
co-host from Illinois, Leanna Lee.
Leanna L: Hi Mike. It's so good to be back in person. I'm seeing your lovely face.
Mike V: Yes, we're not sitting at computers over Zoom. I mean, it was great that we had it, but
I'm glad that we're here. The pandemic has been so stressful, and that's why I'm glad
we're talking today because we are going to be talking about stress as part of a three-part series. In this episode, we're talking about managing stress. Then the next one, it
will be exhaustion. Then the third one, it's burnout. This is important because I believe
that language is important when we talk about things. People just throw it out there and
say, "Well, I'm stressed or I'm burned out or I'm exhausted," sometimes as if they mean
the same thing. I think it's really important to distinguish the difference between each
and what happens when you don't address one. For example, stress is your body's
response to stimuli in the environment. Exhaustion is when you've had way too much
stress. It's, you're tired all the time. Burnout is just when you can't do anything anymore.
We're going to start with stress today. I wanted you to tell us a little bit about stress from
your perspective.
Leanna L:
Yeah, yeah. What exactly is it? It's one of those arbitrary concepts that a lot of
psychologists and psychiatrists are just still trying to figure out how to define, right?
Many people see it as a negative. This comes with negative connotations, right? Oh, I'm
so stressed out. This is stressful. It's not really the whole story. It's actually supposed to
be a neutral term. As you said, stress is the body's response to stimuli. Stimuli is kind of
any change, any circumstance, any situation that happens to us. If you think about it,
there are a million points in your day when something changes. That comes up with
business too every day. There's these millions of little decisions you have to make.
And so everything kind of starts with stress if you think about it, because we have all of
these stimuli coming at us, and we have to make a decision one way or another. What
makes it stressful is once you're faced with this decision faced with this situation or
circumstance, your body and brain have to decide, is this a threat or is it a challenge?
Then that's kind of, if you interpret it as a threat, then your body is like you go into this
like fight or flight mode, you have this adrenaline kick, things start turning on and your
muscles get all bunched up, and you're ready for this threat, to take on this threat. But I
mean, as a challenge, there's an emotion with that challenge too. You're facing something
head-on. You're overcoming something. Over time you, that can also take its toll.
Stress can motivate us to different of actions, good and bad actions or decisions let's say,
but they can also come from both positive and negative experiences. There are both
negative and positive types of stress. Did you know that?
Mike V:
I didn't know that. Can you elaborate on that? I'm just curious. What's positive stress.
Leanna L: Yeah, so positive stress is called eustress. It basically translates as good stress. That's
basically, so I'll use an example. Say you go on vacation, right? That's a good thing. It's a
positive thing. You're excited about it. But if you are bombarded with all of these
decisions and you have all of these new experiences and you have all these decisions to
make, and you have this itinerary, at the end of the vacation, you had a great time, but
you may be really tired and think, "Okay, well now I need a vacation from my vacation,"
because your body has just experienced all these new stimuli. Maybe you've been to a
new country. Maybe you want whitewater rafting, whatever the case may be, its all this
new stuff that you're not used to, all the stimuli. Your body is just really tired. That's an
example of a good thing.
I mean, winning an award, doing a speaking engagement, that's something I'd love to
hear your perspective on, but it doesn't have to be a like a, "Oh no, this terrible thing
happened to me now I'm stressed out." It can be, a lot of good things that have
happened, but your body is like, "I'm really tired of responding to this stuff. I just need a
break." That's a way of describing that.
Then the negative version of that is distress, so there's distress and eustress. You can
also, there's also internal and external stressors, right? Take something like COVID 19,
which was a great example of an external stressor because you have all the stimuli coming
in, all of these new restrictions, the lockdowns, the visceral reaction to what's going on
on the news. I would say a lot of this is perceived that as a threat because a pandemic is a
threat. You have all of this stuff coming into your brain. You're having to make these
decisions. You're having to face these new challenges each day. That wears on you over
time.
Then sometimes if you're in social situations, the pressure of constantly being on, of
being social, that can also, because that's a million little decisions. You have to interpret
facial expressions, micro-expressions. You have to remember social etiquette, so that's
another situation that could go either way. It could be a great event, but you, it still
mainly if you're tired and exhausted afterward because you've been constantly, you've
been on the whole time. That's how I see stress is just like being on like you're turning
on up a dial a little bit. But yeah, it's just a fascinating state because if you think about it,
we just deal with this every day on some level, but it's also still a concept that we don't
really know a lot about.
Mike V:
That's so interesting. It's funny that as we're talking, I'm looking at the recorder that
we're recording with because we are live again. We're not doing this over the internet,
which is really great. It's just so much different. But prior to hitting record, we were
worried because the recorder was having some issues with turning on and stuff like that.
I'm looking at it right now to make sure it's still working. This episode's going to come
out.
Leanna L: You're like, "Um, talking about stress."
Mike V: Yeah, so I was feeling a little bit of stress as we were going to be talking about stress. But yes, when we're faced with a stimulus change in circumstance or situation, this can
mean even like moving. That's an example of good stress. You're excited to move into
your new place, but you've got to move, and moving can be very stressful. Some
examples of stimuli as a business owner. Oh, so many different things. Maybe it's that
email from that one client, you just see their name pop up in your email and that can ...
Leanna L: Your blood pressure spikes a little bit.
Mike V: Blood pressure spikes or maybe it's a deadline that you're stressing about that you're
constantly thinking about. Maybe it's the fact that you're struggling with cash flow and
you're thinking about that. You're trying to be present.
Leanna L: But remember, it's not always negative experiences.
Mike V: Right, it's not always ...
Leanna L: Maybe you got a huge payment and you're like, "Okay, now what do I do this?"
Mike V: Yes, I'm going through that right now actually. I've ...
Leanna L: That's like a good problem to have as stress.
Mike V:
Yeah, I'm going through the busiest month of my speaking career right now as we're
recording this. I am having to be on four days a week. I am grateful for it. The business
bank account is grateful for it. But at the same time, it's like you said before, I have to be
on. There's so many things I'm thinking about. Even as we're doing this, there are like
little things in my mind. It's like, "Wait, we've got to make sure we do this later. Write
this down." Those are some examples of things, an the email from a client, but just
remember, even the alarm clock in the morning waking you up, that's a stimulus of some
type and so that's a challenge.
All the types of stress can lead you to feel overwhelmed and you start to lose focus and
it affects your productivity, so this is what you would call the distress not the eustress.
Hat distress is really what we're focusing on here. It becomes a problem over time,
because if it's prolonged, it will take a serious toll on your health, on your body, your
mind causing all sorts of health problems and lead to exhaustion, which we're going to
be talking about in the next episode. But then it's compounded by another thing in my
life, my own mental health.
Leanna L: Yes.
Mike V: So I'm a business owner, but at the same time, I battle major depression, anxiety, and an obsessive-compulsive disorder. You put that together, and we've got a problem.
Leanna L: Yeah, absolutely. When you deal with mental health challenges on top of natural
day-to-day stress, whether it's the stress of being a business owner, the stress of life,
personal decisions that come up that compounds the issue, right? Stress may look a little
different. I think of it as, so anxiety is this stress without the stimuli. You don't need any
stimuli to feel anxious about something. It's just constantly there. Your brain has forged
pathways in a way that just run on its own without any interference you, which is being
anxious without you doing anything about it at all. When you add these stressors, it
amplifies the problem, at least for me.
That's my experience is that I didn't need any reason to be anxious, to begin with, but
now I have these visceral, actual things to be concerned about. Then my brain latches
onto that, and I'm like, "Okay, this is now is definitely feeling like more of a threat than a
challenge." Because I think, as someone with anxiety, you're not like, "Oh, stressful
thing. That's a challenge I can overcome." It's more like, "Oh God, not again. Not another
one." For me, the feeling of being stressed is pretty common. In my day-to-day life with
anxiety, stress is something I constantly have to manage. I feel like I'm constantly chasing
like that high of being calm.
Mike V: I love that. Say that again.
Leanna L: Constantly chasing that high of being calm, because when you think about, if you have anxiety and you just have this moment of peace and quiet, it's like, "Ah, I want to relive
that constantly over and over again. It feels so good. It's just like eye of the storm,"
which now that I think about it is probably a bad way of expressing it, you know what I
mean?
Mike V: Yeah, no.
Leanna L: But I love that. I do not need the stressors to be anxious, but when I find that peace and I can manage it properly, it is just like, "Ah."
Mike V:
I love that, but let me just ask you this, so go back to your stress. Let's just say this is like a typical workday in your business. You wake up and you start doing work. What does it
look like when you're at the computer or whatever you're doing and stressed?
Leanna L:
Okay, so for me that usually comes, I have like a, I think of it as a car pile-up with small decisions or small things that have gone wrong. It could be, so I wake up, maybe I woke
up a little late. I'm like, "Okay, you know what? I'm fine. I could be flexible today. It's
cool. I'm just going to have my tea. I'm going to sit for a little bit. Then maybe I'll just
start working a little faster." That's a first little hint. It could mean anything, but it sets
me up for the rest of the day.
The next thing could be that I just have a lot going on that day. I'm like, "Okay, so I woke
up a little later than I wanted to. I have a lot going on. Okay, this is fine. I can manage it.
I'm good. I'm just going to do this and this and this. We're just going to take care of
ourselves. It'll be fine."
Then, "Oh my God, right? I have these phone calls I have to do." Okay, so my blood
pressure's, like muscles clenching a little bit, blood pressure's going up, like, "Dammit. I
hate having a long workday plus multiple phone calls. I know I'm going to be short on
energy after this."
Then maybe the final, there's like a final thing. Maybe a client comes back with some last-minute edits, and they didn't like what I did, where I went with the piece or it could
something ridiculous like I find some food gone bad in the fridge or my clothes are dirty
and I haven't had time to do laundry or the dishes are piling up or something. It just feels
like, again, that pile up. Then I'm like, "All right, that's it." It's just the snowball effect. It's
small things. Again, a couple of them I can probably handle. Over time as I've learned to
manage stress a bit better, I can take on, it's like juggling balls in the air. You can take on
a couple before it becomes a little bit difficult, and then eventually, there's just too many
for me. Then I'm there. I'm there. I'm overwhelmed.
With the way my anxiety works, if I'm not careful, anxiety heads into a depressive cycle
like that cyclone of depressive thinking and feeling. I really have to stop it, the anxiety,
before it heads down that path because that's not great. Yeah, that's kind of how that
works for me. What about you? Do you relate to that at all? Do your experiences look
similar? because I don't, I think our anxiety, our experiences with anxiety are pretty
similar, but I think yours manifest slightly differently to mine. I have like very physical
reactions to anxiety, like stomach aches and that sort of thing. What about you?
Mike V: Yeah, I love the car pile up. That describes it.
Leanna L: [crosstalk 00:15:36] word picture.
Mike V: Let me just tell you about this morning. This morning, I'm getting ready. I knew you and I had to record. I had to do some other things, check some emails, respond to some
things. One of the things that I do in my business, I don't know if I've shared this with
you. When a client works with me, hires me, I always send them a handwritten thank
you card.
Leanna L: Yeah, yeah. I think you did tell me that, yeah.
Mike V:
I just think it's a nice gesture to show gratitude, to send love out there into the world
because I want them to know how much I appreciate it. It gives me a moment to think
about what I enjoyed about the experience with them, so it's positive energy going
through the air. And so I had to do some of those. But I was getting caught up in all of
them and thinking about what to say. Then we had to record the podcast today, what
we're doing right now. And I had to quickly think about what we were going to do and
what I was going to say and stuff like that. We also had the logo. We're looking at
designing this new logo, which by the time you're listening to this, it's done, so I'd love
you to go to our website and check it out, let us know what you think of the new logo.
Leanna L: [crosstalk 00:16:40] that.
Mike V: There's all these things at once, and even the fact of I haven't seen you since before the pandemic.
Leanna L: Yeah.
Mike V: I'm coming here and driving here and I'm thinking, "Oh my God. What's that going to be like? Is Leanna going to come up to me in a mask and be like, 'I can't hug you.'" All this
stuff, and it's going to be awkward. My mind's thinking about all these things and it was
to the point where it goes right into anxiety at some point. It starts becoming this
downward spiral. I always talk about rabbit holes, like in the ...
Leanna L: Alice in Wonderland.
Mike V: ... Alice in Wonderland, yeah, going down a rabbit hole. That's what starts to happen,
but here's where it gets to trouble for me. I don't know if any of you out there feel the
same way, but I start creating stories in my head that aren't true. I start creating ...
Leanna L: Oh, that sounds familiar.
Mike V: I start creating some magical stories about life, about everything going on in my life, my family. It just really becomes a nuisance, because I can't get work done. I cannot get
work done, or I'm struggling just to send that one email. It really becomes problematic
for me.
But here's the cool thing about this episode. The reason we're doing it is not to complain
about our stress. That that will stress you out if you have to hear that. We've got some
tips for you to manage your stress. The first one I want to give you is to do your best to
identify it within yourself. Now, stress can bring up all sorts of feelings, maybe no
feelings at all, but sometimes it's actually not stress that you're feeling. It might be
anxiety. If you're not in touch with what's going on inside of you, you're not going to
know. This is a process, not a destination. But I wanted to share with you three questions
that I recommend you ask yourself throughout the day. I'm going to break down the why
of each and what it means. One is, what am I feeling? The second feeling, second
question is, where is it located? The third question is, what do I need right now?
Now let me start with the first question. What am I feeling? Oftentimes when I ask
myself that, I don't know the answer. That's fine. You might not know either. Actually, as
you're listening to this, think about it. What are you feeling right now? Just see if you can
just tune into that, what's going on inside you. Now, when you ask that though, you start
to gain awareness around your feelings. That's the important part of the question, not to
get an answer, to gain awareness.
The second question is where is the feeling located? There's a book that has taken over
the world of mental health called The Body Keeps the Score. It talks about how we store
trauma and emotions in our body. Oftentimes if you feel something somewhere, like you
were pointing to your stomach before, that's an important indicator of what's coming up
for you. For instance, when I'm angry, I feel it in my chest. I can point to that one spot. I
always feel it in my chest. It will improve your awareness.
The third question is, what do I need right now? This is what I call the reparenting
question because you get to reparent yourself here and be like a parent. Sometimes you
need to just simply get a glass of water. Sometimes you need to stop checking email.
Sometimes you need to turn off your phone. Sometimes you need to say, "You know
what? I need to go for a walk." Sometimes you say, "I need to muscle through this
project and just really focus hard, then do blank." But the idea is that you start to gain
awareness around your feelings. Over time, this will make you so much more productive
as a business owner.
Leanna L:
I think over time is the key phrase there, because what Mike is describing is advanced, I want to say advanced technique because I think we all have some basic level
of awareness of our feelings. At least I hope we do. If not, there are probably other
things that we're working through right now, which is totally fine. But gaining an
awareness of your own feelings and checking in with yourself does take practice. I feel
like people like us, like you and I, Mike, who deal with mental health issues every day is
something that we learn to do overtime. You and I have had a lot of practice over the
past 10, 15, and in your case, 20 plus years, more than that, 25, 30 years I think.
Mike V:
Oh, I mean, I've been battling this stuff for my whole life.
Leanna L:
Yeah, yeah, so it's over decades, you've gained awareness. This is not something that
comes just immediately. Because of that I think it's good to have symptoms of stress.
Just keep them in mind because as Mike said, it could be stress that you're feeling.
You're just like the awareness is to get a sense of whether it is stress or some other
emotion, so are you angry, are you frustrated, are you sad, are you anxious? No. Maybe.
Or maybe, I don't know. Let's, okay. Well, am I stressed? How do I know that I'm
stressed? Some symptoms you can keep in mind. For me, I said mine is more visceral and
physical.
Physical symptoms can look like a headache, a stomach ache. You could have a lack of
energy, inability to complete tasks. If you're getting, if you feel sick or you feel like you're
getting sick, you get those flu-like symptoms, that can be a sign of stress. Or on the
anxiety end, things are speeding up, right? You're sweating. You have that rapid heart
rate. That could be a good sign of stress as well. Another, for me, I find it a little bit hard
to concentrate when I'm overwhelmed like things are starting to float around, spin
around in my head faster and faster. That's that anxiety cyclone starting up there.
Then if something that you're particularly stressed about, that one thing, you may be
hyper-focusing. It's a struggle to be present in the moment because all you can think about
is that one thing, that one thing that isn't going, right, that one decision that you have to
make, and that leads to, "Oh, now I can't relax. Now I can't de-stress. I can't unwind."
Then maybe you have difficulty sleeping, you have difficulty just like getting out of it,
turning off business mode, separating your work and personal life. Then if you're
stressed about something in your personal life, maybe you're struggling to switch back
into business mode and be productive, as you said. Because it can really wreck your
productivity.
Just keep those in mind and yes, other feelings, you do have some of those symptoms
with other feelings too. It's not perfect, "Oh if I have a headache, I'm stressed out
rather than angry." This is to just keep in mind, "Okay, so what am I feeling? I have a
stomach ache. Oh, that's interesting. Did it eat something bad recently? No. Okay, so
that may be either a feeling or stress." It helps you baby steps to figure out what the fuck
is going on. But then once you have a better idea, you tuned into that and you have a
better idea of what kind of feeling it is, what kind of am I stressed out, then you can start
to find the source of the stress. That's our third tip. I think we're going to start with you
on that, Mike. You have some interesting strategies for finding the source of your stress.
Mike V: Yeah, there's a book that if you haven't read it, I encourage you to check out called
Getting Things Done. Great title for a book. It's a very popular book on productivity. The
author, David Allen talks about the fact that as you go about your day, we all have open
loops on our mind, even right now as we're doing this recording. Leanna, both of us have
things on our mind, little things rolling around in there. As you're listening to this, you've
got things on your mind too. When we can't gain any kind of control around those
things, that can also cause stress. I mean, that's just not just the outer stimuli. That's the
internal stuff you're talking about here.
And so one of the best ways to manage that is by doing what we call a brain dump. A
brain dump does not mean you turn your head to the side and try to like hit yourself in
the head and dump out your brain. Please don't do that. Basically, a brain dump is where
you take a piece of paper and a pen and write down everything that's on your mind. This
is not just the stuff that you need to do. This means maybe you are obsessing about
something that happened 20 years ago. Write it down.
Leanna L: Oh, oh, that's [crosstalk 00:25:28].
Mike V: Maybe you can't stop thinking about an idea that you want to do on vacation. Write it
down. Maybe you're just off at someone in your family. Write it down.
Leanna L: So you're clearing space.
Mike V: You're clearing space. What happens is this ...
Leanna L: Such a good idea.
Mike V: When you see it on the piece of paper, I would love to tell you, it takes away your stress.
It doesn't do that. It makes it more manageable. Here's the thing. When you see it on
the piece of paper, you can generally pick one thing and say, "What can I do that's within
my control for one of those things?" What it does is you start to take your power back.
That's so important when you're feeling overwhelmed, but you were talking about
worry, right? We were talking about that before.
Leanna L: Yeah, yeah, so my version of, I guess your brain dump is more specific. When I'm
stressed out, I've learned to tell over time. I have situational anxiety, which is a bit
different to generalized anxiety. Usually, there are specific steps that lead to me feeling
anxious. If I work backward, I can identify by most of them. There's still some
generalized anxiety there, but I think my anxiety works a little bit more like stress
because there are general causes that you can point back to. Where generalized
anxiety, anxiety in general, it's just kind of up there in your brain. There's not much you
can do about it. I have some of that on a lower level, but mostly it's a situational thing
where I just have like, I think if it as like a cup that gets just really full really quickly, and if
I'm not good about turning off the tap, then I'm just going to get so lost in this metaphor.
But anyway, so I have a low tolerance for stress, essentially, and anxiety. That's how my
anxiety works. What I do is a worry list. It's kind of like your brain dump, but it's focused
on what I am stressed about or frustrated about. So it's if there is a negative emotion
attached to it and kind of like you said if you're spending time on it, it's taking up space
in your brain, I write it down. There's usually a lot of things. It's either things that have
been slowly taking up space over a little bit of time, maybe for the last couple of weeks,
like something's been on the back of my mind.
There's stuff that built up over time like I told you, I took you through a day that could
end up being very stressful for me so then I could write down all of those things and say,
"Okay, so it started alarm clock, I woke up late. Then this happened, then this happened,
then this happened." So I write that all down and then I'm like, "Okay." Like you, I ask
myself, "What can I do?" Sometimes there is a solution. Maybe I can reschedule
something. If it's bad, maybe I'll cancel or reschedule one of those calls. Maybe I will ask
for more time for a project. But it depends on how I'm feeling that day and where my
energy is at, but that's where I start, what can I do about what's on this list?
Sometimes, again, with awareness, it's a trial and error process. It's something that you
learn over time, so sometimes I don't have the luxury of being able to name all of my
stressors. I do something called a gut check. I will ask myself questions.
I think most of you know by now, if you don't, then I'll tell you I'm a birth parent. I placed
my daughter for adoption when she was, at birth. I'm a part of this birth parent group
called The on Your Feet Foundation, which a fantastic support system for birth parents. I
attend their conferences every year. One of the things we learned at these conferences
when it comes to mental health is gut checks. It helps you identify the source of your
stress by asking yourself these questions, like, is it this, is it that. You start with the universal, right? It could be something like, is it work? Is it my husband, [inaudible
00:29:31]? Is it my family? Is it money?
Then from there, I get more specific. Okay, so I usually feel a twinge. Like I said, my
anxiety is a little bit more visceral, so I do feel it in my stomach. And so if I feel a twinge,
a little bit of a cramp, I'm like, "All right, it's money, so was it the fact that my client
payments' running late? Ah, there's a twinge? Is it this? Is it that?" So it could be a bunch
of things, but often by asking myself those questions, I get it down to specifics and then
that's when I can make my worry list and be like, "All right, what next? How do I do
something about this?"
Mike V: You just described the magic eight ball.
Leanna L: The magic eight ball?
Mike V: ... that I used to have as a kid. You would ask the ball a question and you just turn it over.
Leanna L: Oh, oh, oh, yeah.
Mike V:
Signs point to yes. It's like we would play with this. It's not real. It's not a real magic eight-ball. It just randomly puts answers to questions, because of the thing floating in the
liquid. But that's a really cool system that you have because you get to really just check
in. I love that. You know what I also love about that. I'm going to start doing that by the
way. I really am. I'm learning so much from you in this episode right here, so thank you
so much for all this. What I like about it, and we're going to go back to this in many other
episodes, is that it gets you in touch with your physical body and the stress. It's not just
in your mind. I know the name of the show is Bettermental, but remember that we're
talking about mental health. We're talking about thoughts for feelings and behavior,
even though we use the word mental. I just think that's really important.
But I wanted to give you just a quick pro-tip if you're listening that you can use if you're
beyond overwhelmed. What you can do is do a brain dump or worry list and have
someone type down or write down what you are talking about. They can ask you
questions. I was just wondering if you and I could do a quick one right now for me
because I have a lot going on.
Leanna L: Yeah.
Mike V: I was wondering if you could actually just take a few minutes to type and maybe ask me some questions as I tell you about what's on my mind. Maybe you'll help me be less
stressed.
Leanna L: Okay, so what do you think you're stressed about right now?
Mike V: Well, I've got a lot to do between today and tomorrow. I know we got some episodes to record, a photoshoot. I've got a dinner tonight, but also email and work stuff.
Leanna L: Okay. What about getting the stuff done today is stressing you out? Are you concerned about timing? Are you concerned about getting it done? Are you concerned about being there for people? What do you think?
Mike V: I'm concerned about being prepared for my episodes, to be honest with you.
Leanna L: Well, you know what we could do to solve that is we could go through each episode before we record it. Maybe that will help.
Mike V: Maybe, maybe.
Leanna L: No, this is not at all how you should necessarily respond. It's an inside joke because we often argue about how prepared we should be for episodes. I'm like, "Maybe if you
prepare beforehand, you won't be stressing now."
Mike V: That's an example though. What we're doing, this kind of dialogue though is an example of what you can do with someone when they're stressed. Try not to laugh at them.
Leanna L:
No, right. So you're starting with, okay. When you ask, "What do you think you're
stressed about? Then usually what they'll answer with first is the top things that come to
mind, the things that are really pressing on their brain. That may not be all that they're
stressed about, but it's good to start somewhere because they've got the most obvious
ones because you're talking about the ones that are happening right now today or right
just in the future, things that you're dealing that have been in front of you recently. You
may have other stuff that you're stressed about within the past couple of weeks or couple
of months or even years that you've been holding onto, but we're not there yet. We're just
dealing with the present because you're managing the symptoms. It's less preventative.
It's more management.
Then I ask, "Okay, well why? What is it about that that is stressing you out? Is it this? Is it
this? Is it this?" You're trying to get into the core of because these are tasks that you're
stressed about, but there are reason, there is reasoning behind it. Maybe it's a lack of
preparation that you're concerned about. I asked, "Is he afraid of not being there, being
present," which is something that a lot of people with mental health challenges, that's a
struggle is staying in the present moment. Time management, that's something I often
stress about, so I always ask people about that, because I'm like, "Ah, how do I get from
one thing to the next?"
Just keep that in mind, as you are helping someone or if you need someone's help to
identify the sources of your stress, like, "What is on your mind? Why do you think that's
on your mind?" Then if you need someone to go through, "Is it money issues? Is it work?
Is it family? Is it relationships? Is it travel?" Sometimes those keywords can generate a
visceral, actual response, so you could feel a little short of breath, you could have a little
twinge in your stomach, your hands could get tingly or you could feel a little bit cold or
you could suddenly feel like you need a drink of water. Any sort of physical response to
that is usually a good clue. Some people have sharp, little pains between their eyes,
behind their ears, something. Your body will react because that's what stress is is your
body's reaction to stimuli. If you are stressed about something, your body will tell you.
You're reverse-engineering the stress. You're being like, "Okay, you're giving me this.
Now I'm all uptight. Now you're going to tell me why because that's what you do." I see
that as reverse-engineering the stress. Yeah, so again, it's a process of elimination, but
it's also a trial and error process. It does take time to build up that awareness and that
ability to identify feelings and identify symptoms. If you have someone who can help you
out with that, or if you can use those keywords and write down what's going on with
you, you're in a much, much better place to find solutions and manage it better.
Mike V: Better.
Leanna L: Better.
Mike V: Bettermental.
Leanna L: Bettermental.
Mike V: With that, I just want to remind you that owning a business comes with a lot of stress.
Leanna and I are both business owners. We're used to this. It's one of the reasons why
we are doing this show here. Recognizing and managing it can set you up to run a better
company, lead a better team, handle day-to-day issues and just make more money.
Leanna L: Mm-hmm <affirmative>. True, yeah.
Mike V: There's a really good reason to invest in your mental wellness. I just wanted to share a
quote from Spiderman. Leanna gave me permission to ...
Leanna L: I'm sorry. I know the quote. I love this quote. It's just ... Go for it. I'm sorry.
Mike V: Now, I can't even say it straight now. It's, "With great power comes great responsibility." I learned that in Spiderman. You know what? If you are a business owner, you're in a position of power. There's a responsibility that you have to run your business.
Leanna L: Well, not just that. You have a responsibility to yourself, right?
Mike V: Yourself too, yeah.
Leanna L: Because you're not only the business owner. You are the manager. You're the CFO, you're the CMO. You're all the employees if you work for yourself, by yourself. You have a
responsibility to all those theoretical business people in your head, all of those
employees of the company live in a single body, and that is you. And so if you aren't
managing yourself and your stress and your mental health properly, then your business
just falls flat. It just, it cannot work properly. You can't show up for your clients. You can't
show up for your work. You can't show up for yourself. That's why it's so important
because literally how you show up to work is that's what you have to deal with. That's
the business you've got. That's the baseline that you're working with. If you can manage
that stress and you can put those systems in place like any, this is like any business
system you put in place, is just for the health of the entire company being you.
Mike V: Yeah, no. I love that. Also remember, it's about your life outside of work too.
Leanna L: Yes, absolutely.
Mike V: You want to be able to show up for that and, and you've got a responsibility. It's in your power. One of the things that I'm really enjoying about this episode is the fact that this is
all about you. You've got choices you can make. We encourage you to really listen and
take some of the ideas and work with them. With that, what's coming up in the next
episode, Leanna.
Leanna L: Yeah, so we're doing a three-part series about management, basically. We're started with stress today. The next episode is basically the next step. If you haven't been able to
manage stress properly, or if you have been stressed for a while, guess what's going to
come next? Exhaustion, so that in our next episode we'll talk about exhaustion, what that
looks like, where that comes from, what that looks like for us day-to-day, and then how
we manage it on a daily basis. Then our third episode is about burnout, which we'll talk
about next time.
Yeah, thank you so much for joining us. This was such a great episode, I think to come
back on. Lord knows we need it still. With all of this shit going on worldwide, it's just
great to sit down in person again finally, after 15 months or something ridiculous. It's
great to see you in person again and to talk about, well, I don't know if I would have
chosen to talk about stress the first thing that I see you in person to talk about, but it's
great to have this conversation with you again.
Mike V: It is. Well, thank you, everyone. We'll see you next time. Take care of your mental
wellness.
Leanna L: Bye.