Hello, everyone. Welcome to "How to More Effectively Respond to Stressful Situations." This is the first topic in the 2023 Deer Oak Stress Management Webinar Series. I'm Greg Brannan from Deer Oaks, great to be with you today. Before we get started, folks, I want to make sure our technology is working for us. If you can please locate the Raise Hand icon in the GoToWebinar software in the upper right-hand corner of our screen, and if you can see the slides clearly and hear my voice clearly, could you please click on the Raise Hand icon now?

Thank you, folks. Looks like we're good to go technology-wise. Let me tell you a little bit about this series before we get started. This is, I believe, probably the eighth or ninth year in a row that we've offered this quarterly series. So again, the 2023 Deer Oaks Stress Management webinar series offers one stress management-related topic per quarter throughout the year.

So we're starting today with How to More Effectively Respond to Stressful Situations, as you see on the screen. In June, we'll be coming back with Preventing and Overcoming Burnout. In September, we'll follow with Managing the Stress of Change, and then in October we'll finish this series this year with How to Better Manage Stress at Work.

If you have not had an opportunity to register for the final three quarterly seminars that are scheduled for this year and you would like to, all you have to do is hit Reply to your GoToWebinar invitation for today. And that email will go right to our staff, and just ask for them to send you the registration links for the remaining topics in the 2023 Stress Management webinar series, and we would be happy to do that.

One more thing I want to remind you of folks, is during these educational presentations provided by Deer Oaks, participants are in listen-only mode, which means, of course, you won't be able to audibly ask questions during the formal part of the presentation today, which should last probably around 30 minutes, give or take.

But your questions are important to me. And so when we get to the end of the formal part of the presentation, I will open it up for questions. At that point, please feel free to type any questions you have into the Question box in the GoToWebinar software in the upper right-hand corner of your screen. We'll get to as many questions as time allows today. All right, folks. I'm looking forward to that Q&A session here coming up shortly. Let's go ahead and get started.

Let me begin with a quote from one of my favorite all-time speakers and teachers. His name is Chuck Swindoll. He's written a lot of books. He's best known as a minister, but he's a well-known author, presenter, communicator. Has a lot of wisdom. And I truly learned a lot from him over the years. And I love this as a jumping off place for our conversation. This quote. What Chuck said was, "Life is 10% what happens to me, and 90% how I respond to it." I'm going to read that again. "Life is 10% what happens to me, and 90% how I respond to it."

And when I first read that, it's probably about 20 years ago now. I really had to do a double take to make sure I was understanding it, because I had been living my life up to that point, really in a more reactive way. And I would be responding and reacting to what I was confronted with in life. So if I was dealing with a problematic situation or I was dealing with some sort of a stressful issue, I would end up just reacting to that.

And I was a pretty reactive person back in those days. And I didn't realize that the key to managing stress, that the key to handling difficult circumstances in life and getting through difficult situations is learning how to effectively respond to those situations. And that's why Chuck Swindoll with this quote really got me thinking. Is that really when you look at things this way, that life is really 10% what happens to me, now, that doesn't mean that stuff doesn't happen to us. Challenges come to every person.

Problems confront everyone. Stressful situations are experienced by everybody. But the issue here is not what's happening to us so much, it's how do we respond to it? How do we manage that, and how do we respond to it? Do we manage it and do we learn to stay calm and handle things and respond in an effective way? Or do we get all emotional and overreact and say or do something as a result of the stressor that we regret later or maybe just as ineffective in coping?

And so that really got my attention. I was really glad he shared that. So I spent really much of the last two decades trying to learn how to, more effectively, respond to the things that happen to me. Now, obviously, we're living in a very stressful time in history right now. So stress management skills are probably more important to people now than they've ever been before.

Gallup polling company, that so many of us have had an experience with right? They've recently said that this is the most stressful time in history. And they've been tracking stress levels in our world for decades. And so interestingly, 44% of Americans right now say that they experience a significant amount of stress at work every day. The highest number that Gallup's ever tracked.

And there's a lot of reasons for that. We're still in an ongoing pandemic. I know most of you are familiar that there's another variant, probably more than one, but there's another variant that a lot of people in parts of America are dealing with right now. It's got some different symptoms. And so we're still in a pandemic. It's not over yet.

Thankfully to our medical community and our government organizations, we've learned how to work with the pandemic and keep people safe and get people vaccinated. We've done a lot of wonderful things in response to the pandemic over the last three years as a world and as a country. But we're still very much in the stress of it. It's still stressful. It's still causing problems for people. There's still the threat new and different variants that could be coming around the pike.

And changes that people may have to continue to make as a result of the pandemic. Now, we're also in a really challenged economic situation right now in our world. I know most of you are familiar, right? Inflation is incredibly high. I've talked to so many people who are struggling right now to put gas in their car. And I was talking to someone, a young professional who said that her landlord had raised her rent $400 a month twice in the last two years.

And talking about how difficult it is for her to afford-- to continue to live on her own because of that burden. Going to the grocery store right now, I've talked to so many people talking about they're spending 15%, 20%, 25% more at the grocery store when they go nowadays than they were three years ago or four years ago buying the same groceries.

And so I mean, obviously, there's interest rates or as we all know, interest rates have gotten a lot higher to try to buy a home, to try to buy a car. There's been a big uptick in how much credit is costing people. So we're in a very challenging time economically right now, which is creating additional stress for people.

And now, of course, the changes we've experienced, especially since the onset of the pandemic, I know I I'm preaching to the choir about this, but one organizational development specialist said that we are living in a time of unprecedented change. He was saying that I've never seen so much change happen. So quickly, one after another, than ever before.

And so again, this is-- and that's on top of the kinds of things that we deal with every day. Everyone has some stress, normal day-to-day stress. Paying our bills, raising our families, taking care of our work lives and our home lives. But right now, in particular, we're in a period of life where stress is extremely high for a lot of people, at least much higher than it normally has been.

And as most of you know, there's a direct connection between our stress levels and our health. That term stress-related illness that we've all heard of, depending on what study you read anywhere from 70% to 90% of illness, mental health issues like anxiety and depression, physical health conditions like diabetes or asthma, or migraine headaches, or the onset of skin rashes, are either caused by or made worse by stress.

And I think most of us recognize that. There's a direct connection between stress and illness. And the fact that we're living in a more stressful time, everyone's risk of illness is probably higher than it's been. And then there's also the thought of the need to mitigate the negative impacts of stress. We're going to talk a lot today about some things that we can do to better cope with stress and better manage the stress in our lives.

When we do a better job of coping and when we do a better job of managing the stress that we're confronted with in life, when we respond to it more effectively like Chuck Swindoll was talking about, that can potentially mitigate the negative impacts of stress in our lives and on our health. All right. I'm going to talk about four things today. Let me give you a quick overview. So part 1 is going to be managing our thinking about stressful situations.

Again, like Chuck Swindoll said, how we respond to situations is a real key to how well we manage and cope with those situations. We're also going to talk about managing our emotions. That's another part of responding effectively to difficult or stressful situations. And we're going to talk about the importance of balance.

Individuals do a good job of keeping their lives in balance end up as more resilient people that can handle more, can get through things more effectively, and also do a much better job of coping with their day-to-day stress. And then last but not least, we're going to talk about, what can we do to proactively build up our personal resilience so we can better handle the stress that comes into our lives on a regular basis?

Let me start with managing our thinking about stressful situations. To me, how we think about what we're going through is the first line of defense in terms of coping. How we think about a situation. Again, going back to Chuck Swindoll's quote from a few moments ago that "Life is 10% what happens to us, and 90% how we respond to it." How we think about and respond to what we're going through will determine, oftentimes, whether we cope with it effectively or whether it really gets the best of us and causes us to quote unquote, "stress out about it."

So I'm going to give you an example about that NIH had a-- the National Institutes on Health, right? They had an incredible study on premature aging that was published, I think, it's been 25 years or so ago. And it was published in The Washington Post originally and I think it spread. It was published in a lot of journals.

It was pretty profound study. And it really got my attention. And the study included about 500 or 600 women who all had the exact same life stressor. Every one of them had a chronically sick child at home that they were caring for. Obviously, caring for a chronically sick child is a very stressful situation. It's there every day.

That child's illness has to be taken care of and monitored every single day. It creates a much higher our stress level for those families. But what was perplexing the researchers is that even though all the women in the study had the same life stressor, they all had a chronically sick child at home, only half of the women were prematurely aging, were 40-year-olds look 50, and 50-year-olds like 60.

So they were more wrinkled, had greyer hair, were losing their hair faster. But the other half of the women who, again, had the same stressor, they also had a chronically sick child that they were caring for, did not look any worse for wear. 30 and 40-year-olds at 40, they weren't that prematurely aging. So the researchers started to do personal interviews trying to drill down and figure out what's the difference here? Why are only some of these women prematurely aging?

And what they found was, probably won't be surprising to us, but what they found was the half of the women that had a positive attitude. That even though they weren't happy about having a chronically sick child, they were thankful that they had a child. They looked at the bright side, they talked about how caring for their child brought the whole family together, that it brought them closer as a family unit, and they were grateful.

They stayed grateful. They maintained a grateful attitude that they were together and they were able to manage the situation and the illness together. And as a result, they were not prematurely aging. They were not letting that situation overly stress them. Sure, it was difficult. That's a difficult situation, but they were not-- by virtue of having a good attitude and staying positive, they were not prematurely aging. They weren't letting it get to them.

The other half of the women that were prematurely aging had really negative attitudes. They complained a lot, they were really negative about it, they felt like victims, they couldn't believe that this happened to them, and they fretted and worried about it constantly. And as a result, they literally were thinking themselves older, and again, they were prematurely aging where 50-year-olds look 60, and 60-year-olds at 70 and so on.

And I thought it was really interesting that that's a really great, specific example of how we stay positive when we're going through a stressful situation. We will cope with it more effectively, typically. And it won't get to us as much, especially, if you think about stress and health again, if you're going through something stressful and you have a good attitude about it, you're managing it well, you won't necessarily-- it won't stretch out to the point where it's causing an impact on your health.

One of the things that happens when people don't handle stress really well is their response, the fight or flight response that they stay in because they're letting it get to them and they're staying negative about it, they're staying upset about it, they're staying stressed out about it, that literally causes the immune system to lose its strength, and it's not as effective, which allows people to catch the illness or come down with medical conditions that they might not have come down with, otherwise.

That's where, again, that term stress-related illness comes from. But people who respond in a really positive way to stressful situations, that have good self-talks, say things like, I don't like this, but you what? It's not the end of the world. I can handle this. I've got a good support system, it's going to be OK. That was one of the best lessons I ever learned. I went to counseling for the first time about 30 years ago, and I was going through some anxiety at the time, which I had never experienced up until that point, at least not at the level that I started to deal with it or even have panic attacks.

And I went and saw a counselor, and he helped me realize that one of the reasons I was struggling with so much anxiety and so much panic, he says is you're continually thinking negative thoughts and worrying about what you're dealing with in your life. Now, he did explain to me. He was a really good teacher. He explained to me the difference between legitimate concern when we're going through something stressful, he says, it's fine to be concerned about stuff, but he says, you can choose whether you're going to excessively worry about it day in, day out after that point.

And it really was a wake up call for me. And I realized that I did I had a habit of excessive worry. I was worrying every day that my boss was happy with me. Because my parents had gotten divorced when I was a kid and I was a newlywed, I was worried about if my marriage would end in divorce. Because that was very painful. I didn't want it to happen again as an adult.

I was worrying every month, if we could pay our bills, we were a young couple just starting out. And what I learned from that psychologist, again, was such a great life skill. Was just that I had more control over my self-talk than I realized. That sure, people are going to-- you're going to have a negative reaction if you get confronted with something that's very difficult. There's no question about it. Where you might get upset emotionally, and you might have some negative thoughts.

That's normal. We're human. But what the psychologist taught me is from that point though, he says, you can choose to take some control over your thinking. You can decide that you're going to keep your worry under control you can decide to be more positive in your self-talk. And again, that was such an important lesson for me to learn. So I got to the point where I would start to worry and I'd catch myself and say, you you know what?

Sure, I'm concerned about this. But it's not the end of the world. I'll talk to my wife about it tonight. We'll figure something out we always do. It's going to be OK. And that became my default. To this day, 30 years later, I use that life skill almost every day. When I get some bad news or someone tells me something that's a problem and I start to get upset about it or start to worry about it or get negative about it, I catch myself and take a step back, and start to reframe my thinking into more constructive, positive thinking, which helps me become less negative and keep my worry under control.

Now, along those same lines, another good way to use a good attitude, right? To help you cope more effectively with stressful situations is to change your perspective or in other words, adjust the way you look at the situation. Like you can look at a situation and think to yourself, this is terrible. This is awful. I can't handle this.

Like the women that were prematurely aging in that study I mentioned earlier. Or you can look at that situation and say, hey, you what? Sure. I'm not happy about it. I wish the situation was different. But it is what it is. And we got a good family. We've got a good support system. We can handle it. That again, is adjusting the way you look at the challenge. Your perspective-- having a good perspective when you're going through challenging or stressful circumstances.

Again, is a coping skill. Can help you get through that situation much more effectively. Like, for example, one of the things that I really like to think about nowadays is-- to put things in perspective is, I learn and grow much more during the difficult times than I do during the good times. There's no question about it. I've thought about. I've been in the workforce now over four years, and I'm dating myself, but one of the things I've really learned over the last decade or two, is that I get a lot out of challenges. I get a lot out of uncomfortable situations. When I go through problems, I get stronger.

I mean, I'm talking about growing in strength, right? Learning new lessons, learning new skills. I can get through more challenging circumstances now than I've ever been able to effectively because of what I've learned over the years. Going through previous challenging situations. It's made a big deal in my life.

I mean, it really-- so it helps me-- my coping skills today are so much better than they used to be, because I just don't let stuff get to me as much. When something happens, I try to look at it and change my perspective about it and realize, hey, you what? I'm not happy about this. It's always important to acknowledge that no one's happy about a negative circumstance.

But you what? Maybe something good could come from it. Maybe this will make me stronger or maybe I'm going through this. So after I've learned how to deal with it, maybe I'll be meeting someone else in the future that I can maybe help because of what I went through. When I went through that anxiety and panic I talked to you all about a little bit ago, and I had never experienced that, and when I came out of that, I have met some dozens of people over the years who have struggled with anxiety and panic.

And because of what I learned when I went to counseling to learn how to deal with that and manage it effectively, I'm able to share those same lessons with other people that are going through those situations. I think most of us recognize, the people that are most helpful when an individual is going through a difficult situation, those that have already been there. Those that have been in their shoes and have learned some things and can either provide support or can give some advice based on how they handled it when they went through it.

I do believe that-- one motivational speaker said recently that, you can either grow through things or you can go through things. I mean, if I'm going to have to go through something uncomfortable, I want to get something from it. I want to grow through it. I want to take something from it that either I can use to improve my own strength and coping skills or used to help somebody else who's going through a similar situation in the future.

Next, let's talk about managing our emotional response. Oftentimes, overreaction occurs because we're not managing our emotional response very well. And again, this goes back to Chuck Swindoll's-- I know a few of you joined late. Let me go back to Chuck Swindoll's original quote, because I want everybody to see this. Is that "Life is 10% what happens to me, and 90% how I respond to it."

And that was-- again, as I mentioned to many of you earlier today, that was profound for me. Because up until that point when I read this quote about 20 years ago, I was really pretty reactive. Something negative would happen, I'd go through a stressful situation, or I'd have a baby with a problem. And I would just overreact.

And I didn't realize that what Chuck Swindoll got me thinking here is that, wait a minute, if I can learn how to respond more effectively and cope with things better and manage things better when something difficult happens in my life, it's going to go better for me. And so really, that's what he was saying. Is that life really is how effective we are-- 90% of life is how effective we are in responding to the challenges that hit our lives. And everyone has challenges.

So let's talk about the emotional management side of that. So when you're going through stressful situations, if you're not good at managing your emotions, and some of us aren't, I wasn't for a long time. You may not be aware of just how upset you are, you may not be someone that is in touch with your feelings, like you could be really, really upset, not realizing how upset you are until all of a sudden you overreact.

And so sometimes, the first time people become aware, and I was no exception. I was very reactive earlier in my life and still struggle with it sometimes, because I'm human. Is I wouldn't even realize how upset I was and someone would say something, and all of a sudden, I would just overreact. And I'd wonder, where did that come from?

But over the years I started to learn how to stay more aware of my feelings. Like if I was angry, I started to become more aware of-- I'm angry right now. So I should be careful to manage this feeling so it doesn't cause me to overreact in a conversation I'm having later on that day. And so let's be thinking about that. Let's be thinking about staying aware of-- and that whole term emotional intelligence that so many of us are familiar with. It's such an important set of life skills.

And we can get better at it I got a lot better at it over the years, and if I can get better at it, because that was pretty reactive, and not very good at emotional intelligence of 20 years ago. Anybody can. It just takes practice. And so nowadays, I try to stay more aware of how I'm feeling, and if you're not aware of how you're feeling, it's hard to manage an emotion you're not aware that you're having.

That's when people, oftentimes, will overreact as they're really emotional about something and they're just not totally in touch with how upset they really are or how fearful or anxious they are or how angry they really are. And all of a sudden, they're having a conversation or needing to make a decision, and they do something in a very reactive way out of emotion.

And so I think it's really important, particularly, for the health of relationships, both personally and professionally, to know what we're feeling and manage those feelings so that we don't say or do something in a conversation, that we regret later. I think most of us probably someone in our family or in our lives that is mad at someone else because of something that was said in anger or under duress at one point that they couldn't take back.

And the other person never got over it and now they're not talking or now their relationship is strained. So it is important-- it's part of reacting and it's part of responding effectively to stress or to challenges or problems. Stay aware of what we're feeling and then intentionally, manage that emotion. Like for example, you can be angry. I think we all know this. You can be angry. Someone can do something to make us change.

We can feel the emotion of anger and still manage that. We don't have to yell at the other person out of anger. We can choose to keep that anger under control and not express it in an inappropriate way. I think most of us would agree that yelling at someone when you're angry is not a very appropriate way to express emotion. It's certainly not an effective way to express emotion.

It can make the situation worse. It can escalate the situation and really cause a problem between those two people. And so we need to practice managing our emotions during stressful situations. And I think most of us recognize that poorly managed emotions can cause ineffective behavior like yelling at someone when you're upset or raising your voice at someone when you're upset or road rage.

I think we've all either experienced it or seen or read about really extreme situations where drivers down the road do dangerous things out of the emotion in the moment. When someone cuts them off on the highway, they get real upset and all of a sudden they're yelling at the other driver, and I mean, some very dangerous things can happen during times like that. I think we all know that.

And then in just day-to-day situations, we can make poor decisions when we're upset. People who are really emotional. Emotions-- folks, let's remember, emotions are not necessarily rational. Emotions are real to us as individuals, but emotions are subjective. Every individual feels their own emotion their own way based on their perceptions, how they think about that situation based on past experience, based on their predispositions.

We all know that. You can have the same stressful thing happening to two people in the workplace side by side and they both handle it differently. And so we need to remember, folks, that there's an old saying, that we shouldn't make decisions when we're upset. We should wait until we're calmer so we can make a more rational decision instead of just making a decision based on emotion.

All right. So one of the ways to do a better job of managing emotions is to minimize overreactions. We can be more intentional about this. I do a lot better with this now than I did 20 years ago. I had a really awful conversation that I didn't handle very well with a coworker 20 years ago where I was really upset about something and I had heard she had said something about me the day before. This is a colleague that I worked with years ago before I came to work for Deer Oaks. I've been with Deer Oaks for the last 12 years.

When I found out about the situation, I just overreacted. And I went and confronted the person, and I was escalated, and they got defensive, and we argued. And it really hurt the relationship after that. The relationship was never the same. And I came to realize that I just didn't manage my reaction. And we all have buttons that can be pushed.

I want us to recognize a couple of things here. One is, everyone experiences the fight-or-flight response when we're stressed. I know we all know that. Fight-or-flight response stands for-- that term means either fight against whatever's confronting you or run away from that. Fight or flight.

And the fight-or-flight response has a bunch of emotions that come with it, and it has a lot of hormones that come with it, like adrenaline and cortisol. So people's heart beats faster. They start speaking faster.

And what happens is either we feel threatened or our buttons get pushed. So I want to talk about the dynamics of emotional overreaction so that we can be more aware of it and manage it better. Again, if we're aware of what we're dealing with, what we're feeling, and what our buttons are, we can manage those reactions. But if we're not aware of what our buttons are--

Let me give you some examples of buttons that could trigger an emotional overreaction. You could have underlying psychological issues, like feeling out of control, feeling threatened or unsafe, feeling disrespected.

Disrespected is one of my buttons. When my daughter, when she was a teenager, would do the teen thing, and push back to her mother and I, I would get so angry. And when my colleague said those disrespectful things 20 years ago in the example I just gave, that was a respect issue for me. I felt like I was being disrespected, and I got really angry. It's a button in me that I'm much better at controlling now because-- or managing now because I recognize it better.

Then there's other contributing factors, like energy levels. When people don't have a good night's sleep, when they're exhausted, most of us don't manage our emotions as well as normal. We're going to be more apt to overreact emotionally if we're tired.

Or that sometimes it's just difficult people-- a button-pusher, right? We all probably have at least one person in our lives, a family member, a colleague, a neighbor that pushes our buttons and causes us to overreact. So let's just stay aware of what our buttons are so when those buttons get pushed we can be aware that they're being pushed, and we can manage that situation so that we don't overreact emotionally, and say or do something we'll regret later.

And then the life skill to managing overreactions is to build in a pause. I'm much better at this now. I'm much better when something happens, and I feel myself getting upset, or getting angry, or getting anxious, I'm much better at taking a step back and say, OK, what's going on here? Why am I feeling this way? And getting my emotions under control so I can calmly respond to that situation instead of reacting emotionally, like I did with my colleague 20 years ago-- and it didn't go well.

All right. The next part I want to talk about is keeping our lives in balance. Folks, this is a very, very important life skill, or practice, if you would-- life-management practice. And so again, most people's lives nowadays are more stressful than they've probably ever been. And if we maintain balance at work, OK-- let's just talk about work first, then we'll talk about our personal lives-- we can cope with things better. We'll be in a better place.

People who keep their lives in balance tend to have more resilience. Resilience is our inner ability, our strength, our energy to get through stuff, to deal with stressful events, to face challenges.

And so there's some things we can do to maintain balance at work so we'll be more resilient. We'll be able to get through things better. We'll be able to manage our stress better and cope better.

One is manage your schedule. Plan your days well. A lot of people overcommit. They are trying to do too much in a day. They overbook themselves. They go from meeting to meeting to meeting to meeting, and never have time to get any other work done, so they're always feeling rushed, or they're just trying to get too many things done a day.

I went to an incredible stress-management seminar 20 years ago given by Zig Ziglar, the motivational speaker. Some of you might remember. He was incredible.

And he talked about-- the key is to have an achievable plan for your days. So get up every morning, or the night before, or however you do your planning, and have an achievable list. Instead of trying to get 15 things done, which really is not achievable for most of us, which would keep you feeling rushed and overwhelmed throughout that day, make a smaller, more achievable list of four to six things, was his recommendation.

I've been doing this now for over 20 years. It really makes a difference. It keeps me from feeling rushed. It keeps me from feeling overwhelmed. I used to work through lunch all the time because I was always feeling like I never had enough hours in the day. I had too much to do.

And now, since I'm more-- I do more achievable, realistic, daily plans, and I have the smaller have-to list, instead of a really, really long to-do list, I can pace myself, and I can focus more on quality throughout the day instead of quantity. So let's make sure we're pacing ourselves. And when you have a good work plan that's achievable, you won't feel as rushed.

And then you've got to take your breaks regularly throughout the work day, folks. Don't work through lunch. You might have to do it once in a while when you're on a deadline, but that should not become a lifestyle.

I used to work through lunch 15, 20 years ago. I was working through lunch probably three or four days a week. And I was paying for it. Then I was exhausted in the afternoons, and I just wasn't enjoying life. Life, it really felt like a race. I felt more like a human doing than a human being, if you've ever heard that term.

But nowadays, I take my lunch breaks regularly. I had a nice lunch with my wife today. It was really nice. And I came back to work very refreshed, and I've got lots of energy now. I find I have more energy in the afternoon if I take my breaks, if I takes my lunch break.

In many parts of the country, the weather's starting to warm up a little bit. So when the weather's nice, let's get outside. Let's do some things to recharge our batteries every day at work so that you stay fresh.

And then, folks, enjoy your home life. I've met so many people recently whose home lives are so frenetic. They're so hectic. It's almost like they have two jobs. They've got their full-time job at work and then they've got their full-time job at home-- especially those that are raising kids, or going through a real busy period in life.

And they're not enjoying life. They don't have any downtime. Folks, we're not wired to go seven days a week, 12 hours a day. We need to pace ourselves. We need to have leisure time every day. We need to be scheduling things we enjoy regularly so we can recharge our batteries.

And I was trying to get some work done yesterday, and I really told my wife at one point-- I worked for about an hour yesterday morning trying to catch up on some stuff. And I told my wife-- I said, I don't think I'm going to work anymore today. I know I've got a lot to do this week, but I think I'm going to just knock off and relax.

And we sat on the deck. It was nice. Weather was in the 60s. We got some sun. It was really, really nice. And we enjoyed each other's company, and it was it was a nice day. And I almost missed out on that opportunity because I was focused on work in the morning and catching up.

But today I came back to work with a lot of energy. And hopefully my enthusiasm is coming across to you now because I recharged my batteries yesterday.

And so folks, when you're home, be home. I know we all have tasks to do, and the lawn to cut, and the grocery shopping to do, and all those kinds of things, and the kids to take here and there. But make time. Make time to spend with people that you care about, doing things that you enjoy. That's what makes life really, really wonderful, is being present with the people we care about and really getting a lot out of our home life.

Last but not least, and then I'll open it up to questions. Let's talk about building up our personal resilience. I've already talked a little bit about this. I want to use a sports analogy here, folks. I won't overuse it. I'm an ice hockey coach. I think about sports a lot. But most of you probably played a sport when you were back in school, or some of you now still watch sports.

But athletes don't just show up on game day and perform their best. They have to practice. They have to work out so they have endurance, and they have to practice so they know what to do on game day; they can be their best.

And resilient people can get through a lot of stress and pressure day to day on the job and in their personal life because they've got inner strength. They've built themselves up. Folks, when you're resilient, when you have a lot of inner strength and ability to get through things, you'll have better coping skills. You'll be able to respond better, more positively to the stress problems and challenges in your life. You'll bounce back better from difficult circumstances.

Catastrophe, loss, trauma-- it won't be the end of us. We'll bounce back from it because we've built up that inner strength. Resilience also gives us the ability to persevere to get through things, to endure things.

I think that's one of the life skills that I find most important in my life is perseverance. My wife and I talk about it. I can get through stuff. I don't quit. And some of it's because I believe in it, but another part of it is I build up my resilience proactively. I skate 8 or 10 hours a week when I'm coaching, and that helps build up-- you know, actually, Wednesday nights and Saturdays, I'm at the ice rink. And that's really built up my physical strength.

And even at my age. I told you, I've been in the workforce now for over 40 years. I have a lot of energy. And it's because I'm taking care of myself, and I can get through stuff. And also, when you're resilient, you'll be able to adjust to change better. And there's been a lot of changes in the world that we've had to adjust to.

So here is a final thought. Here's three resilience-building activities that all of us are probably doing some of that will build up your resistance, and help you get through stuff, and deal with stress better in the future.

One is self care. I know we all that. Folks, we've got to exercise regularly. The American Heart Association says that the average person should be doing at least 150 minutes a week-- two and a half hours-- of moderate exercise. So if you're not doing that, I got to tell you, from a guy who exercises, it makes a world of difference.

And not everyone has to go to the ice rink and skate 10 hours. You can walk in the neighborhood with your friend. You can get on a treadmill or an incumbent bike in front of your TV and watch your favorite show or your favorite sporting event while you're exercising.

But we need to exercise. It really strengthens us, and gives us the power to get through things.

Got to get enough sleep. If we're not rested, we're not going to have enough energy to deal with difficult situations. We won't be our best.

We've got to stay connected to our support system. A lot of people, when they're going through tough times, they disconnect and isolate. Folks, the more stressed we are, the more challenged we are, the more we need our positive support system. We need the people around us to help us get through things, that can encourage us, that can be there and be a listening board, a support.

And also, interpersonal connection, we really saw that during the pandemic when so many of us were working remotely, is that being apart from each other, we're not as energetic. Connection increases energy. We get energy from each other. Whether you're an extrovert or an introvert when we have a good conversation, even a five-minute conversation with someone we care about, it increases energy. We feed off of each other.

And then last but not least, let's make sure we're regularly doing things that give your life meaning. I love teaching because I feel like I'm helping. This is one of the things I get to do that I treasure because I feel like when I'm doing this I'm helping others. And every one of you does that. Every one of you has that superpower that you have, or that gift that you have that makes a difference to others. Some of you are really organized-- and I admire because that's not my skill. And you keep the rest of us organized.

Others of you are really-- you have huge hearts, and you're the people that folks come to when they're struggling, and you're there for them. You're that listening ear. You're that supportive person. Whatever your life skill is that makes a difference in the lives of others, make sure that you're practicing it. Martin Luther King said it all comes down to what are we doing for others. Also, people that are helping others regularly are more resilient and more motivated.

All right, folks. I know we covered a lot in a very short period of time today. I'm going to open it up for questions. If you have any questions, please type them into the question box in the GoToWebinar software in the upper right-hand corner of your screen.

Our first question is, are there any handouts for this training available? Yes, if you'd like a copy of the PowerPoint, we'd be happy to send it to you, and/or the recording. We've recorded this session today. All you need to do is hit Reply to your GoToWebinar invitation for today, and your reply will go right to our administrative team. And just ask for a copy of the PowerPoint, or the link to the recording. We'd be happy to send it to you. Thank you for asking that question.

Folks, are there any other questions today?

Yeah, someone's asking, are there any surveys to fill out? Yes, you will receive from the GoToWebinar system an evaluation, and we would be happy to get your feedback. So please feel free to fill that out.

And here's another question is, I work in an all-male department. At times I feel I'm repeating myself over and over. How do I control my reactions from anger or frustration?

That's a great question. And I think that's-- I really appreciate you asking that, because that's really a good example of what I was talking about earlier today, folks, is that we have to manage our reactions to things. Again, stuff's going to happen to us. People are going to treat us, sometimes, in ways that we're uncomfortable with. I mean, everyone's human.

Sometimes you're going to experience a problem that you've never faced before, and maybe you're at a loss. You don't even you know how-- you don't how to handle it.

But in this situation-- I want to stay through to this question-- is this is a lady who's working in an all-male department, and she feels like she's repeating herself over and over again, and she's saying, how do I control my reactions from anger or frustration. And so this is a great example-- I'm so glad that you asked this question-- is we need to make a decision that I can respond in a way that works for me.

Now, you're going to feel what you feel. If you're dealing with a bunch of guys that are insensitive-- and I don't mean to project onto your situation, because I don't the details. But if you're dealing with a bunch of guys, and they're not responding well to you, and you're feeling uncomfortable with their poor responses or their lack of responses, and you feel like you have to repeat yourself over and over again, naturally you're going to feel some frustration. You're probably going to feel some anger. I mean, I can relate to that. I think anyone in your situation would.