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Episode highlights:
03:51 – Make happy, not be happy
05:15 – Three ways to reframe your mindset
08:25 – Turning stress into a positive
11:18 – Four stages of dealing
13:53 – A cornerstone habit
17:39 – The ABCs of stress management
20:12 – Do like the zebras
25:42 – The drama triangle
31:14 – Wrapping things up
Build a life you love around a business you enjoy with James’s help
Transcription:
James: James Schramko here. Welcome back to SuperFastBusiness.com. This is Episode 678, Bio Upgrade Method Episode Five, talking with Anita Chaperon from The Bio Upgrade Method. Hello, Anita, how are you going?
Anita: I’m doing very, very well and suitably happy for the topic today.
James: Well, that’s good. I mean, I’m actually pretty happy because it feels like we’re making great progress, much like if we were starting a new routine. We’ve put in the groundwork, we’re starting to see the results. We’re getting comments and discussions happening around our environment. We went through Episode One, talking about becoming the CEO of the business of you. Episode Two, about eating well, having a healthy life with minimal discomfort. We also talked about, in Episode Three, rest daily, sleep, rest, recharge; probably not enough people talking about that one. Episode Four was move often and clean up, exercise and detox. And here we are, Episode Five, one of our favorite topics. Want to run through the introduction?
Anita: Yeah, so this one is, as much as the other ones, the other four that we covered, obviously quite substantial and can bring you a lot of health benefits. This one is by far my favorite one. And I’m really excited to share with our listeners not a few, but four really good tactics or tools, as I like to call them, for creating a healthy mindset. And by healthy mindset, I don’t necessarily mean, you know, getting healthy, but a mindset that serves you to maintain focus and to remain excited about your daily tasks and about your business and to have the energy to carry through and to enjoy your family and friends and whatever else you want to enjoy. So yeah, I’m really excited about this one.
We’re going to cover a few ideas of how to change the way you think about your mindset, and hopefully that will help you set up in good stead. I can’t even say this word stead – is that an English word?
James: Well, I think we say in good stead.
Anita: Good stead. There you go. For creating the mindset changes. So yeah, this one’s going to be a good one.
James: Well, I’m excited about that. Of course, if you haven’t listened to the other episodes, that would be a good foundation to build upon. So go back, they actually started Episode 674 through to the current one, 678. So work your way through them. We like these little mini-series, because you can just go from one to the next to the next and layer them on top of each other. And of course, by the end of this, you’ve got a little mini-course worth of information. But that’s really the tip of the iceberg, there is a lot more available. If you go to jamesschramko.com/anita, you can buy Anita’s course, it’s for sale, and she will go a little bit deeper in these topics. But of course, we’re lucky to have such a great relationship that Anita is happy to come along and share some stuff. And speaking of happy, why don’t we talk about it?
Anita: Yeah. So just to kind of reiterate, going back over the previous episodes, just by doing that, you can create a lot of changes in your life. And we’ve really not kept anything back, including the method. So, you know, you’ve got no excuses, basically.
Make happy, not be happy
So today, we’re going to be talking about mindset. And before, when we spoke about the whole ecosystem that is around you, as a human being, you being the system within the ecosystem of your environment. And then the five subsystems, which we’ve already covered in the episodes. So this subsystem is called “make happy”, and it’s very kind of purposefully being named, make happy, as opposed to be happy. Because making happy implies, you know, a conscious effort towards creating that happiness. And by the word happiness, I mean wellbeing; I mean fulfillment; I mean, like, peace of mind and going about your life in the way that you’ve intentionally set out to go.
So without taking care of your mindset, all the other things will fail. And I hate to sound like doomsday, but as much as the other things are important, like food and detoxing, etc. And all of them need to be present in a healthy or well-rounded lifestyle. But without the mindset, you don’t get to start creating healthy habits. You don’t get to stay on track, you don’t get to keep going and optimizing. So that’s the reason why I actually wanted to create three reframes for your mindset or the way you think about it, that will, hopefully, if you’ve struggled to start a new habit, or if you’ve struggled to get healthy, etc., so far, maybe this will help you reframe stuff, or struggle to stay on track, actually, I suppose.
Three ways to reframe your mindset
So the first clarification was, like I already said, that this is a conscious effort, right? It doesn’t just happen to you. You don’t sit back, and all of a sudden, you’ve got this amazing mindset, you’re stress-free, and that’s it.
The second reframe that I wanted to put out is that managing your mindset is a lifelong commitment. Right? It’s not a one-off, magic, one wave. I know, it sounds like a lot of work. And some of it is, definitely. But there’s a lot that’s quite simple to do. And if you commit to it, and just keep showing up, it will eventually show its rewards. And I’m going to share with you a few of those stress management tactics. And actually mindset management tactics. I don’t want to just pick on stress.
“You’ll never be stress-free, and you’ll never be perfect at managing stress.”
And then the final one, before we dive into the actual meaty stuff, is, you’ll never be stress-free, and you’ll never be perfect at managing stress. And I think as harsh as that sounds, the moment you actually internalize that, then you allow yourself to give up the excuse of perfectionism, you save yourself the angst of vying for a stress-free life, because it’s never going to happen. You know, the only time that happens is when you’re dead. Even monks up in the Tibetan mountains, don’t have a stress-free life, because they’ve got things to do, alright? And then you also give yourself the permission to stop beating yourself up for being imperfect. And you just relax into the journey of building more and more tools, basically, in your toolbox to deal with whatever stress throws at you, or whatever you come up in life. Because you will, obviously. I mean, we’re not kids, most of us listening, we’re not kids. And owning your own business would have taught you that you’re going to come up against some poop storms. So learning how to balance yourself out and to shake yourself off at the end of each day, that’s very important. Very, very important.
James: Yeah, you have to have some stress to actually exist, I believe. On a racing car, the tire has to have some stress to grip on the track to be able to let the car go around the corner. So I agree with you, there will be stress. And if you choose the path of an entrepreneur, and a lot of people listening to this are, you’re probably going to attract bigger risks, you might have higher stresses at times. But also we have a lot more capability to set our environment, to eat well, sleep well and adjust our schedule, much more than your average factory worker, haven’t we?
Anita: Yeah. Well, of course. Yeah. And, again, so much of stress management is about reframing how you see your daily situation, right? It’s about making peace with the things you can’t affect. And as I’m signing up, you know, this cliche of give us the strength to recognize the things we can change and to accept the ones that we can’t, but it is genuinely, on a very basic, on a first principles level, that’s exactly what it is. It’s about figuring out what is worth stressing over, and then finding a way to make it enjoyable, and realizing that this is a never-ending quest. Not in a doomsday type of way, but in a way of, I’m going to get curious about it, I’m going to gamify this, I’m going to make it a conquest where each time I conquer an anxious moment, or each time I’m getting up to speak in front of somebody, I can calm down those nerves and not ruin my body through stress. That’s a win and I’m going to celebrate that. And I can have that celebration over and over and over again. So I’m hoping our listeners can see stress as a positive, formative kind of event in their lives.
Turning stress into a positive
James: Well, it’s interesting. I mean, you don’t have to think back far till you discover something stressful in your life. And I’m wondering, like, it’s funny, because just before we hit record, at your place, and at my place, our neighbors started some renovation, and we don’t actually live next door to each other either, so that’s just a coincidence. It’s been very quiet all day until just before time to record. So you could be thinking, Okay, I’ve got to record an audio here that’s going to be listened to by a podcast audience. And this is the exact time they’re pulling out the masonry drill, and drilling into a common wall.
Anita: And they might still.
James: Right, and they could still on cue. How do we manage that? How do we turn that stress into a positive?
Anita: Hmm, well, thank you for putting me on the spot with that one. For me, I don’t know, like, two or three years ago, maybe I would have stressed out about it and gone, Oh, what are we going to do? And now I’m just thinking, well, either it’s going to stop, and so therefore, I shouldn’t worry about it until it really is a worry. And then, worst case scenario, we’re going to have to reschedule for half an hour because they can’t keep drilling, like, forever and ever, or put it to another day, which I know is not convenient. And obviously, it puts you on a different time schedule. But at the same time, it’s not worth losing an adrenal gland for it.
James: Yeah, you know, that’s what you know in this business, I expect, there’s almost always a cancellation or a change. This morning, for example, I woke up really early for a podcast, and the guy wasn’t there. And then I checked my email, and they cancelled my episode. I’m like, what? And apparently, they sent some obscure message like three days ago, wanting me to fill out three pages of information to prepare them for the podcast that was going to be on their show. And I was really upset at the moment, like in the moment. But then I realized, you know, I’ve got other things I can do with this time. I’m going to repurpose this time. And I think about, what can I replace this time with, and how can I put this time to good use and leverage it even more than if I was on that podcast, which is, you know, rescheduled to next week anyway.
But at the time, it was just annoying to discover that. I think the initial rejection of being cancelled was, that’s a first for me, to actually be cancelled out by someone’s team. I mean, who does that? Where’s the little courtesy? Hey, we sent you an email, haven’t heard from you, is everything okay? sort of thing. Or, why didn’t they send it three months ago? So I’ll certainly make sure I re-educate them about best practice in the viewpoint of a guest. But I always have backup tasks, because you can count on a percentage of your appointments not panning out due to reasons beyond your control.
Anita: Yep. And the most important thing to realize here is that you’re in control of how you do this the second time around. But more importantly, this is not personal. And as we’re speaking…
James: Oh, they’re smashing the wall next to my place. I’m just hoping the editor’s going to, she’s got her work cut out for her on this one.
Four stages of dealing
Anita: So you can take a step back in the moment. And actually, this brings me nicely, segues into, I wanted to mention that when you look at stressful situations, there’s typically four main stages of dealing with pretty much any stressful situation. And I’m going to cover those in a second. But basically, it’s taking a step back from, like you described, the initial kind of feeling of rejection, and becoming aware of what does that mean for you, realizing that, okay, it’s not personal, highly likely, it’s not personal, because why would they piss you off, for example. And then from that point of view, taking a step back, giving you some space, and deciding, okay, what am I going to do with this. You could cancel completely and tell them, you know, bugger off, if you can’t be bothered to do this properly, if they’re not important enough. If they’re important enough, you can go back and reschedule. But like you said, reeducate them about it, and then take it as a lesson. And when you do that, it’s like, it’s a totally different effect on your stress hormones, on your physiology, on how you go forward for the next time something like this happens.
“Letting yourself choose puts you in control of how you’re going to learn from an experience.”
And the four main stages, just to complete that thought, awareness. So again, become aware of, what is the problem here? What is the problem for you specifically, right? Why is it creating discomfort? Then take a breath, which basically means create space between the problem and yourself to be able to see what it actually means and what it implies. And then choose, which means, by giving yourself a chance to choose, it puts you in control of how you’re going to learn from this experience. And then do or don’t do. So choose what you’re going to do, and then do it or don’t do it. But make sure that it’s because you’ve chosen to make that step.
James: That’s good advice. And I was lucky I edited myself. I know to hit pause, and wait. And I’m now aware of another technique for gathering information before a podcast that’s out there, even though I think it’s overly harsh on the guest. I’ve done so much work on this podcast already, before I even get to it. I feel like there’s nothing fresh left for me to talk about. So it’s interesting. But certainly, if someone were to seek my counsel on ways that you can get people, if they were very weak at podcasting, and couldn’t think on the fly, or have to work off a loose structure or do any research whatsoever, then they would probably need a system like this. It would carry them.
So what about we go into the meat, so to speak?
Anita: Yes, let’s do that. Okay, so I’ve got quite a large toolbox of stress management and coping tools, but I had to select the ones that will give you the most bang for your buck, so to speak, with a nice cliche. That’s an overused cliche.
James: So this will be the hammer.
Anita: This will be a hammer for every stress episode. So there’s one that’s a hammer for everything. And then there’s three that are very, very quick to implement.
A cornerstone habit
So the first one is meditation, we mentioned it in the last episode. And meditation goes, you know, it’s by far one of those cornerstone habits that nails pretty much every nail out there, from eating mindfully through to detoxing your neurotransmitters in your brain, and breathing, so you detox your body physiologically as well, to calming the mind.
So think of meditation, if you struggle to adopt a meditation practice, think of it first of all as something, it’s kind of like food. You’ve got to find the thing you love doing, the thing that draws you in emotionally. There’s so many meditation types nowadays, that if you’ve only tried once in one type, and you’ve given up, please do yourself a favor and try as many as you can. Even if you find the one that you actually like for the moment, try others as well, just to give you an idea of, literally, like tasting all the sweets in the sweet shop, in a candy shop, right? And then deciding, like, Hey, this is the one that draws me back in.
So there’s things like transcendental meditation, one that focuses on your breath, breathing in and out and how that feels. There’s meditation where you choose a mantra that doesn’t have an English meaning, or meaning in your home language. So you focus on that. There’s guided meditations, there’s open-focus meditation, which is one of my personal ones. There’s thought watching, which is one of the more popular one with most people, most people would have heard of that one.
And then also, you know, if you need assistance, or at least you need some sort of a device to anchor you, at least in the beginning, when you’re starting with a meditation habit, get an app for your device. There’s like a gazillion apps at the moment. Some of my favorites are relax melodies. There’s one called Headspace, which is quite popular. Binaural beats is not technically a meditative application, but basically, it uses brain frequencies and stimulates the brain to basically follow those frequencies. And I find for me, that works really well, because I cannot stand guided meditation. I can’t think of anything worse while you’re trying to meditate to hear somebody else talking. And then there’s an app – well, there’s many apps, but one of the more popular one, that’s if you like to hear explanation of why you’re doing things the way you’re doing them, then Sam Harris has a really good app called Waking Up, and that one has like a daily routine each day that you follow. And then he explains to you, you know, what meditation is doing for you, what you should focus on and so on.
So the bottom line is, meditation is so vital, it’s literally like gym for your brain. You’re training yourself to be able to focus on demand. And I don’t know of any more useful tool for a business brain than that.
James: I liked Binaural beats. I still listen to them. You have to have headphones, of course, and they really can get you deep, quickly, if you respond well to them.
Anita: Again, you know, that goes for everything. If it’s something that appeals, expect it to draw you back every single morning. Like, set up a specific time that you’re going to go and meditate, when it’s going to be pretty much free for you. So there’s not going to be other distractions, other appointments or stuff like that. And even, not even, but in fact, I would say start with just five minutes maximum. Literally do not say, I’m going to do 45 minutes of meditation session right out the gate. If you progress to that eventually, fine. But set the five minutes minimum and that way you can always default the tiny habits methodology for habit formation. You create the simple, the minimal essential dose habit. And then, even if there’s an emergency, you can still fit in five minutes. Hell, you can do five minutes on the toilet, while you’re doing number two.
Wow, I managed to get that in.
James: Yeah, well, you’ve managed to pop that in there, a couple of episodes now. It’s just, good. Obviously, if you’re eating really rough food and good stuff, you’re obviously making a regular visit.
The ABCs of stress management
Anita: Right. So that’s my first kind of tool in the toolbox for creating a healthy mindset. Then the next one is a very quick one. And it’s not my one, I didn’t come up with it, but I don’t remember who did. And it’s basically, it goes, mind your ABCs. And ABC is an acronym for Attention, Breath, Choose. So again, going back to the whole structure of tackling any stressful situation is, train your brain whenever you’re feeling a physical stress in your body. So whether it’s in your chest and your heart area, whether it’s in the pit of stomach, which is typically where most of us would feel it. Whenever you feel that stress response, for whatever reason, you don’t even need to know what the reason is. But you can train yourself to be aware of the physiological sign of stress. So whenever you’re feeling that, you go, Okay, I’m aware of it. Right? I’m aware – where is it? It’s in my stomach, it’s in my chest. Just take a breath, take a deep, expansive breath across your entire, the back of your chest. Yeah, and you relax. And then exhale, really, really, really slowly. Maybe take a second breath like that, depending on you know, how well you’ve trained yourself. And then you decide, okay, choose what you’re going to do about it. That’s your C.
So ABC is such an easy acronym to remember. I’ve got some clients that have actually written it on Post-it notes and stuck it around the house, as a kind of really, really good side benefit to that – they’ve done it for themselves, obviously – to be able to remind themselves to trigger that acronym when it’s necessary. They stuck the Post-its around the house. And then sometime later, the particular guy that I’m thinking of, he had a young child in the house. Not a toddler, obviously, slightly older. And he discovered that his little son started using the same acronym as well, which was amazing. You know, that gives me goosebumps knowing that he managed to affect his little boy in that way.
James: Well, I think kids do that. I’m watching my little baby girl watching me when I’m eating and drinking. Her little eyes follow. She’s just watching, you know, she doesn’t eat yet. But she will. I can tell she’s getting the hang of it already. And she’s almost reaching out to grab things. So that’s how they learn. They pick it up.
Anita: Yeah. Whenever I find parents are like, oh, I can’t create this healthy change, because what would my family eat? And I can’t put them out like this, etc. Or, again, talking about reframes, right? Instead of seeing it that way, see it in a way that, wow, this is an amazing opportunity for me to teach my kids to eat healthy, right? Yes, it’s not going to be easy. Heck, we know that. But yeah, reframe it and and use it to create good change in others.
Do like the zebras
Okay, the third tool that I wanted to share with our listeners today is something that’s a little bit more physical. So it’s called the shaking zebra technique. And it’s one of my personal favorites, because it’s very easy and very quick to apply. And it’s a very immediate and failsafe route to releasing stress. And basically, there’s a book called, Why Zebras Don’t Have Ulcers, I’m paraphrasing obviously.
James: Right. Of course there is.
Anita: And so basically, it goes back to the animal kingdom. Most animals, or all mammals, have a physical way of releasing or basically detoxing the adrenaline that builds up in the system through stress. Because as animals, as mammals, our stress system is designed to withstand acute instances of stress, and then going back to normal equilibrium, and then acute stress, and then equilibrium, etc., right? Except that because we developed our thinking brain, we started intellectualizing a lot of the stress and then it started, you know, visualizing and imagining and all that stuff, which creates a whole new complexity around how we shake off stress. We didn’t actually develop that shaking off stress, physical tool that most mammals have. So if you’ve noticed, in a documentary about animals, the zebra gets chased by a lion. If the zebra manages to escape, in the next shot, you see the zebra by the watering hole, just before it bends down to drink its water. It starts to shake its entire skin, you know, and goes from head all the way through to the tail, and maybe even backwards, I don’t know which way it goes. But basically, that’s the way the zebra’s body is now flushing out the adrenaline that was built up into the muscles that actually was helpful for it to run away from the lion, effectively, so it doesn’t get killed. Except that we don’t have that.
So this basic technique, the shaking zebra technique, is whenever you feel stressed, and again, it’s up to you to feel awareness of, Okay, I’m being stressed, or I’ve just had a stressful episode, you’ve come out of it. All it is, is you stand up with your hands by your body, and then you bounce, you know, very vigorously and fast on, I don’t know how I’m going to actually describe this on audio. So you start jumping on the balls of your feet very rapidly. And try not to bounce on your heels, because that could damage your heels. But very, as much as you can, shake your body as much as you can, like from top to toe, let your arms dangle by your sides, let your head shake a little bit, the shoulders, mobilize them, etc. and do that for about 30 seconds.
And to take it one step further, again, training your body to default to that shaking off action for adrenaline, you can gamify it. So for example, my husband and I have this little gamification that we have installed in our lives. It’s every time we go to make a coffee, which is maybe two or three times in the day, but it’s black coffee with espresso, just to clarify for people that might pick me out on this. It’s a very small coffee. But we do it three times a day, and every time you stand by the machine, and you wait for the coffee to be poured, which takes about 15 to 30 seconds, we do the shaking zebra. So that now inadvertently shakes off adrenaline and resets the whole physiology. And slightly, and I’m rambling on a little bit, but for people that are interested in going down the rabbit hole for this, they use a very similar technique with PTSD disorders, with army personnel that have just come back from war, for example. So they use this whole, you know, de-stressing technique, but in a much more scientific way.
So that’s basically a very quick way of shaking off some stress.
James: Well, that sounds good. It reminds me of when I get rumbled in a wipeout underwater. Every single part of me is shaken in all new ways. But I actually think it releases and unlocks the tension in my body. And I was taught to treat it like a spa bath. That’s how I relax now, when it’s holding me under.
Anita: With your breath training, yes.
James: Yeah, reminds me. Do you still do that, where you time your breath holding?
“Your entire life, you’ve got this space to refine your techniques and amend them.”
Anita: So, I don’t time it anymore. But I still do the breathing, because I do the breathing and meditation in combination now, after I went to Joe Dispenz’s workshop. And I find it extremely powerful and can get me into very deep meditation within five minutes, because I combined the Wim Hof breathing technique with the Dispenza breathing and meditation. So you know, it’s an evolution, again, like we were talking about earlier. Your entire life, you’ve got this space to refine your techniques and amend them.
James: You’re like a bio mashup. You’re like a DJ of techniques. And that’s what I like actually, is you’re not just a one-technique person. You’re very open-minded, encouraging people to try different things, test and measure, move on if it’s not working for them and have a holistic approach. So that’s excellent.
I can see our listeners doing their shaky zebras right now. Does it also mean you don’t get a butt? Does it reduce the size of your butt if you do this?
Anita: If you drop it, yes, on the floor while shaking. Well, no. It does have a really good detoxing effect, exactly what you were talking about when you get tumbled under a wave for example, it’s because you’re bouncing up and down. And you know, you could by all means get a rebounder, a tiny rebounder next to your desk, and use that. But you know, not having a rebounder, the shaking zebra is kind of like the second best thing where you can do it anytime, anyplace. You can even anchor it to, you know, we were talking about the post-pee routine. So you know, every time you go to the toilet you come out. Just before you come out, you can do your shaking zebra for 30 seconds. Don’t do it beforehand, probably because you’ll cause an accident, maybe.
James: We don’t want accidents, okay? We’re not covered for accidents around here. I guess that would make us happy, will give us a bit of a laugh.
The drama triangle
Anita: And so I wanted to, I know I’m wary of our time, and I wanted to really fit in the last one, the last technique that I want to share with people listening, because I think that one has one of the largest potentials to affect your relationship with yourself and relationship with anybody else, whether it’s colleagues or partners, or you know, your family, friends, etc.
So this one is called, in psychology, there is a framework that’s called the drama triangle. And basically, and very briefly, (I’m oversimplifying this, but for people that are interested, I’m going to give you a book resource afterwards, you can dive down that hole if you want to) so the drama triangle basically implies that in psychological terms, each one of us acts out of one of three different characters at any one time. And even in interactions with yourself, you know, when you talk to yourself. So you’re either acting out of being a victim, out of being a persecutor, or out of being a rescuer.
So the victim mentality we’re all very familiar with.
James: I think that was me this morning. How could they cancel me?
Anita: But very briefly, right? So that’s okay.
James: Oh, it’s like a micro flash. And I caught myself thinking it, like, on the fly. I’m like, this is savage. You know, I’ve been waiting three months for this. And I’ve mentally prepared. And now it’s not happening. I was disappointed, I was angry, I was frustrated, shocked.
Anita: But then you managed to pull back.
James: Very quickly. Yeah.
Anita: So I’m going to share the technique of doing exactly what you did very quickly and almost on autopilot. And then just before that, the other two personalities are, rescuer. And this is the personality type that, you know, that’s always ready to help others. But mostly they do it because they feel that they know better. You know, oh, you’re having this problem – this is what you should do. Oh, no, let me take you to so and so, let me do this for you. Let me go make you some coffee, etc. And I’m not talking about when you’re genuinely taking care of somebody in distress because you want to alleviate the burden on them. But those people, you know, they have the tendency of always knowing best.
And then the third personality is the persecutor, which is basically, I mean, that’s kind of the obvious one, people that are out to get you.
And in any given moment, you could be one of those people, or you could be seeing other people as being those people to you. And the idea here is that, you turn that around, and you learn to recognize those personalities when they come up. And then you create, again, that’s the awareness step, then you create that space between the incident and yourself and you ask yourself a very simple, or two very simple questions. One is, what am I really trying to achieve here? And what is the desired outcome from this interaction or the situation? And so those are two really, really simple questions to remember. And then you can turn around and go, Okay, so instead of being the victim or feeling the victim or acting the victim, I can choose to be the creator. Right? And again, that’s what you did, James, right? You said, Okay, fine. What can I learn from this here? And the lesson was that people that are poorly prepared, etc., they would need this extensive questionnaire to do X, Y, Z, because then they don’t have to do the work themselves, they don’t have to be engaged with the subject, etc. And the other lessons that you learned.
If, for example, you find that somebody’s being the rescuer, and they always know better, or you’re trying to be the rescuer, which is a negative role, you know, you telling people that they don’t know how to take care of themselves, you can decide, okay, instead I’m going to be the coach. I’m going to be the one that empowers them to find their own way, to find their own best solution, right?
And then the third one, instead of being the persecutor, or if you see somebody that’s a persecutor to you, recognize that and go like, Okay, this is what they’re doing, but they’re doing it out of weakness, out of a negative standpoint. If you’re being the prosecutor for somebody, and you catch yourself in this conversation being the prosecutor, then what you can do is you can say, Okay, let me become the challenger. Right? Because there’s a very different mindset around giving somebody a challenge. That implies that you expect them to be able to solve it, to be able to handle it, as opposed to being the persecutor going, you did this, you’re useless, you can’t handle, etc., which, make no mistake, when you’re persecuting somebody else, that creates as much stress on you as it does on them.
So again, just to very quickly summarize, and I’m going to give you the book resource, so you can dive back into, and actually James as well, if you know the post to this, I can share my tiny diagram to kind of clarify this concept, because I think it might confuse a few people.
James: Anything you can share with us, we’ll put on the resource page at Episode 678.
Anita: We can do that. It will give you something that you guys can use, like, immediately, almost. But basically, the drama triangle now turns into the empowerment dynamic, right? And for me, it was by far the most transformational kind of concept to internalize for myself, because I’m not typically a victim by personality, but even with me, I started seeing moments where in my relationships, I’m trying to get my own way. So I’m acting like the victim, right? Or I’m trying to get my own way and I’m being the persecutor, and then the other person is shutting down and is being defensive. And when you’re in a relationship where you don’t want to cause that reaction in people, it’s really, really useful to catch those moments and know how to mitigate them. And it’s so easy to do. And it’s so liberating.
So yes, we’ll share the little diagram. The book that I wanted to share with people as well is called The Power of TED. You could literally crunch to it in two and a half hour sitting. And I think it will transform the way you see the world around you and your interaction with people, and therefore your mindset.
James: Nice, what a great resource.
Wrapping things up
Anita: Yeah, so well, this is what I thought I would share with people. There’s plenty to act on, and just like we say in every one of the five episodes we’ve covered so far, we want to know in the comments below what caught your intention, meaning what one thing did you actually get excited about and you’re looking forward to, you intend to try? And it will be nice to know why it excites you. And by sharing with us, not only do you give us some feedback on what we’ve covered, if it was useful for you, but also you’re giving a chance to the other people that are going to read the comments, for them to get some ideas and hopefully transform something in their life for the better.
James: Wow. Digital high fives all around.
So basically, we’re intentionally creating a fresh, focused, peaceful and enthusiastic mind or happy person. We’re meditating, we’re minding our ABCs. We’ve read The Power of TED, we’re thinking about shaky zebras, it’s all happening.
Anita, thank you so much for sharing this. You’ve really delivered across this miniseries. It’s not your first; probably won’t be the last. Of course, we’ll take comments and get reactions and feedback and suggestions from our audience. And it’d be great to track you and see how you’re going. And of course, I love the work you’re doing over at your Bio Upgrade Method. You’ve got that at jamesschramko.com/anita. And you can take this as, Anita says go down the rabbit hole, get a little bit deeper, and I’m sure that if you like what we’ve been talking about here, this is just going to be the next level.
Anita: Yeah. And you learn how to create good habits that are going to last longer, and that can save you not just in your health, but in your business as well. And the whole approach is based around the stuff we already know in business, just to make it a lot easier to adopt. And thank you for this opportunity, of course. It’s fun talking to you every single time.
James: Well, I know you do it out of a desire to help people. I went to tag you on Instagram the other day and you are correct, you’re about as outgoing as a hedgehog. And you know, you’re not doing this to get famous, even though you will probably find a new audience here. But it’s just like, you know, I just love sharing this information. And I think if we can apply these things, find the bits that work, it’s going to carry us through. We might even extend how long we can be on this planet and enjoy life to the next level and do things, like my surfing activity and your activities outside, SUP things and sauna things, shooting. And, you know, enjoy life, travel, etc.
So thank you so much and I’ll speak to you soon, Anita.
Anita: Yes, definitely. Thanks, James. Bye.
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