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Stress Management with Vernon L. Williams · The SmallBizChat with Melinda Emerson

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Stress is about expectations.
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So what happens is I've got a circumstance in my life, whether it's my work life or my
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personal life, I've got a circumstance that does not match my expectations.
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And that's what causes the stress.
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There's a there's a disconnect between the circumstance and the expectations.
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And what I often tell people is you can't change your circumstances, but you can
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certainly change your response to the circumstance.
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Through your thoughts, and that's what all of us can do.
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32100 ignition.
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Let's go.
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Ending small business failure.
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Welcome to the small biz chat podcast.
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With the number one small business expert, Melinda Emerson.
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Melinda's goal is to end small business failure.
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And she'll give you the information you need to succeed and live the life you dream of.
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Now here's your host, the small biz chat lady herself, Melinda Emerson.
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Hi, everybody.
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Happy New Year.
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I'm Melinda Emerson, the small biz lady.
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America's number one small business expert.
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Tonight's small biz chat podcast is gonna be an amazing show.
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And how many of us out here as business owners are trying to manage stress and avoid burnout.
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Well, I have an expert here that's gonna help all of us do better with our daily stress.
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Now here on the small beach chat podcast, we talk about how to start and grow a successful
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small business.
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From multiple angles.
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This is advice you otherwise would have to pay for, but we make it available every month
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because we wanna make sure that you have the tools you need to take your business to the
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next level.
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Now the small biz chat podcast is a peer to peer mentory show, and our mission is to end
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small business failure.
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Hopefully, you're watching us on my small bus lady Facebook fan page or on our YouTube
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channel.
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And by the way, if you like what you're listening to, please subscribe and share and
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leave a comment and tell us a topic that you'd like us to discuss.
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We're happy to do that for you.
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Now let me introduce my guest His name is Vernon L Williams, and he calls himself the
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stress prevention strategist.
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He's an author speaker and coach with a reputation for challenging, encouraging, and
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equipping clients to prevent stress and burnout from the beginning of his entrepreneurial
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career Vernan has had the reputation of exceeding client expectations and helping
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people see their problems in a whole new light.
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He's the author of 8 books, including Top 7 myths that perpetuate stress and how to dispel
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them, and the power to rejoice 21 days to victory over your problems.
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Verna has created several courses online as well, including prevent work stress and
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positive mindset strategy for business owners.
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For more information, go to his website, prevent work stress.com.
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What a great URL that is.
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Welcome to the Small Bishop podcast.
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Thank you for having me.
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So the like to be here.
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Now tell me, how did you get started helping people with stress management?
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Well, it goes back to several years ago.
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I was a corporate manager, and I had worked for this particular company.
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I made you corporation for 23 years.
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I was 2 years away from being eligible to retire and 5 1000, 5000 of us, got the notice
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that we were being downsized.
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And everyone I talked to is, like, so distraught.
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Oh my gosh.
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I'm not gonna be able to send my kids to school.
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I'm not gonna be able to, afford my house.
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I'm just gonna be rowing.
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And my reaction was, what an opportunity?
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What an opportunity?
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Because I knew that there was something better ahead of me because I know that god doesn't
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take one thing that's good and replace it with something that's in theory.
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So that was my confidence.
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And so that is really kind of the point at which I started to recognize that, as Meredith
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was saying, we can reframe our situations.
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And so, and think differently about those situations.
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Because the way it works is we think, and then we feel and then we act and then we get
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outcomes.
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That's always the way it works.
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It doesn't matter what the circumstance is.
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We have a thought and we, that leads to feelings, and that leads to actions and that
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leads to outcomes.
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And so that's when I consciously recognized that I could literally change the way I felt by
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changing the way I thought.
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And so that's what prompted me to then start coaching people on how to change their
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thinking.
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And interestingly enough, I had a person who was a business owner.
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My first client, as a matter of fact, who came to me and said, You gotta help me.
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He said, I am just distraught.
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He said, I've been in the hospital twice.
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My blood pressure is off the charts.
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My doctor said that if I don't change, I'm gonna have a stroke.
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I'm on, 15 different kinds of beds.
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And so I became his coach.
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He just he he wouldn't take no for an f.
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He was my first client.
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And so I had a, a 3 hour coaching session with him and, followed up with a couple of telephone
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calls.
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And shortly thereafter, he got off the meds that he was on.
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His blood pressure became normal and He was, you know, very healthy.
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Because one of the things about stress, that most people probably don't realize it has a big
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impact on your health.
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Reduces it, minimizes your immune system, which makes you susceptible to illnesses, heart
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disease, high blood pressure, somewhat, disorders and so forth, insomnia, and so forth.
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So so that was kind of my foray into helping people who's crashing, of course.
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I've been doing that for, for a number of years, coaching, and developing content to make
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it available to people to help them prevent, not manage stress.
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So why do you think stress is such an issue in the American work culture?
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Because of the myths around stress.
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And that's why I wrote that book, the top 7 myths that perpetuate, key key word being
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perpetuate.
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Because even though there's all this information, I mean, if you Googled the words,
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stress management.
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You get, like, 1,000,000,000 of, responses, but yet, stress remains the number one problem
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health wise in our country.
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And so with all that information out there, perpetuating myth.
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Like, one, for example, one of the myths about stress is that stress is caused by
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circumstances.
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And, of course, that's not true because as a the example I gave earlier, with 5000 of us
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getting the same message, If the circumstance is what caused the stress, then all 5000 of us
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would have had the exact same, reaction, which is being stressed.
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Even today, if you look at statistics on business owners, press, it'll be something like
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57, 58% of business owners.
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Say that they're stressed.
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If if being a business owner calls stress or if the circumstances of being a business owner
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calls stress, then every single business owner would be stressed all the time, but we know
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that's not the case.
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So that's an example of one of one of the myths.
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That leads to stress continuing to, perpetuate itself in our society despite all of the
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information that's out there on the subject.
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Well, now how does stress and worry become like a bad sandwich you don't need to eat?
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I mean Oh
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my gosh.
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It seems like One comes and the other one shows up.
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Right?
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Yes.
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Didn't happen.
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But they do often go hand in hand.
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And stress is about expectations.
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So what happens is I've got a circumstance in my life, whether it's my work life or my
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personal life.
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I've got a circumstance that does not match my expectations.
9:05
And that's what causes the stress.
9:08
There's a there's a disconnect between the circumstance and the expectations.
9:13
And what I often tell people is you can't change your circumstances, but you can
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certainly change your response to the circumstance through your thoughts, and that's
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what all of us can do.
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So that's that's how stress comes to both.
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It's about this disconnect between the reality and the circumstances.
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Worry on the other hand is about anticipation of some future circumstance.
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Worry usually begins with what if?
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What if I lose my job?
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What if I get sick?
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What if I don't find a suitable name?
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What if I'm divorced?
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What if, my kid doesn't get into the college that I'd like to have her to get into.
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So it's always about what if.
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And by the way, Research shows that the average person spends 5 total years of their life doing
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nothing but worrying If you added up all of the instances of worry, it would equate to 5 years.
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That's a lot of worry.
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And of course, worrying doesn't accomplish anything.
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There's a difference between worry and being concerned.
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One of the concerns I have is driving on the road, with all the people who are texting and
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using, using their cell phones.
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So, worry.
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I mean, concern is something that you can do something about.
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So when I and driving, and I see somebody kinda looking down and looking up, I'll slow down and
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let that person go ahead.
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So that's that's because I'm concerned.
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I don't lie and did it.
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And I can go, oh my gosh.
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I'm I'm not gonna be able to drive because there's so many people out there who are
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texting and and, and using their mobile device while on the road.
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So while you can do something about concern, worried you can't do anything about.
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Well, let's talk about some solutions because I I, you know, I I think about what you're
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saying, and I remember something father used to tell me when I was young.
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He said, don't be out here borrowing trouble.
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And he said, that's what he meant when you when you worry about what if scenarios.
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He was like,
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What you what are you doing that for?
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Like, you're borrowing tomorrow's trouble today.
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What are you doing that for?
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That's right.
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Focus focus on today.
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But What are some of the ways that we can avoid stress and burnout?
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Because chronic stress becomes burnout.
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Does it not?
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Absolutely.
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That's what, burnout is is the result.
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Burnout, of course, being defined as emotional physical exhaustion.
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And that burnout comes as the result of prolonged stress.
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And so the way to prevent burnout is to prevent stress, which brings me to what I do, instead
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of helping people manage stress, I help people prevent stress.
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And the way to prevent stress is to, as I said at the outset, change the way you think because
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your thoughts lead to emotions, including stress, and which leads to actions and which
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leads to outcome.
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So instead of managing the symptoms of stress, the best thing to do is to prevent stress.
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And hence, my process of stress prevention method as opposed to the stress management
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method that focuses on on the symptoms.
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Well, how much does our self talk feed into all this though?
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Like, isn't it like it starts with You know, right?
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So so as a man think it it's is he.
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But then it but then it is, like, Oh my gosh.
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You're so stupid.
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Why did you make that mistake?
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Like, like, that's what I'm saying myself.
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That's right.
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Right.
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Which is perpetuating Yeah.
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Absolutely does.
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That's in worry.
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And my prevention strategy involves, as the Bible says, Take keeps thought captive.
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We have an amazing gift.
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It's called self awareness.
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We can have a thought and be aware that we're having the thought even as we're having So what
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I coach people on is to stop that thought, being mindful of what you're thinking, and
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stopping that thought and challenging it by asking a question.
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For example, is this thought helping me accomplish my goals?
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If it is, then I'll keep on thinking it.
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If it's not, then it's got to go.
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And I'll replace it with another thought.
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I use the analogy of if you and your spouse decided to go away for the weekend and made a
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hotel reservation at, a certain location.
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You couldn't just walk in and go up to your room.
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You'd have to check-in at the desk.
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Right?
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So likewise, we should have each thought that we have check-in at the desk and ask a question
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Is this thought helpful, or in the case of the hotel, do you have a reservation?
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If you do have a reservation, then we're glad you're here.
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Let me swipe your card.
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Let me get the bellhop to take your stuff up to the room, and have a nice day.
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But if it if you don't, then you can stay at some of the other hotels in the area, but not
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this one.
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So we need to do the same thing with our thoughts.
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You know, is this thought helpful to me in terms of achieving my goals?
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If it is, then come on in.
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Thank you very much.
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I'm glad you're here.
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If it's not, then you gotta go.
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And this is an ongoing process that we can do because most people have we can have as many as
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60,000 thoughts per day.
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Including the self talk, you're talking 60,000 dogs.
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That's a lot of adults.
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And studies show that 80% of those thoughts are negative, self defeating that we have, and 95%
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of them are repeat.
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I mean, think about it.
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When was the last time you had an original thought that you'd never ever had before?
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So we keep having the same negative thoughts repeatedly and we wonder why we're stressed.
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You know, stress doesn't come from our circumstances.
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Stress comes from what we think about our circumstances.
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Interesting.
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Interesting.
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This is all extremely, extremely fascinating.
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Vernan, tell me what is the best business advice you've ever been given?
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The best business advice I was ever given was based on a quote by Henry Ford, which said, you
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can believe you can or believe you cannot.
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Either way, you'll be right.
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And so that has helped me tremendously in terms of starting a business and, as we were saying
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earlier, not taking no for an answer.
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And, of course, that means believing that you can.
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But, you know, I believe that I can as opposed to believing that I cannot.
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And that's that's just been the overwhelmingly, most, beneficial advice I've ever gotten in
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business.
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Well, I certainly think that's excellent advice.
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Thank you so much Vernan, for helping us.
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And if you want more information about his programs, head over to prevent work stress.com.
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And thank you all for joining me for this episode of the Small Bishop podcast.
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The mission of the small biz podcast is to end small business failure.
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I'm Melinda Emerson's small biz lady.
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America's number one small business expert, and I will leave you with this last thought.
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You now lose in business.
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Either you win or you won't.
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God bless everybody.
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Thanks for listening to the small biz chat podcast with Melinda Emerson.
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Subscribe to this podcast, wherever you listen to podcasts, and join us next Wednesday for
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tech information and interviews.
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You can find more sources and small business success strategies by visiting Melinda's
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website succeed as your own boss dot com.
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Thanks again for listening, and we'll see you next week.