How to Use Stress to Your Advantage

How to Use Stress to Your Advantage

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All right, welcome back to the Daily Mastermind. George Wright III with your daily dose of inspiration, motivation, and education. I hope you're having a great week so far. And if you haven't, guess what? Today is not too late. Get on it. The week is not over.

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Understanding Stress: A New Perspective

But today I want to talk to you about stress.

I have a feeling and it's just a gut feeling that many people listening to this podcast are dealing with stress. And that's because it's part of life, right? It's part of our life. But I read a great article recently from Harvard Business Review, another one of my go tos, right? On how stress can actually be a good thing for you if you know how to use it.

If you know how to use it, that's the key. Because everything you're hearing right now in media and medical and all that is talking about all these negative health impacts of stress. Which are true, by the way. Prolonged stress can have major negative impacts on your health. It can age you, it can, it can physically hurt you, right?

And disease and all kinds of negative health benefits or impacts, I should say.  

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The Benefits of Stress

But what if you took a different perspective? What if you learned to take stress  and look at it as something you can use as fuel and kindling to create results in your life? What if you took a different perspective? I'm just asking you.

Stress,  think about it for a minute. Stress free life. It's boring. It's unfulfilling. It's back to that episode I did on Tony Robbins six core human needs, you know Certainly we need to find ways to you know Have certainty in our life but having a little bit of uncertainty having a little bit of stress is what makes life worth living and more importantly  when you can find ways to take your stress and develop growth from it.

It's even better. Think about some of the times that you've had the most stress in your life, or maybe take another perspective. Think about times that you've grown the most in your life, personally, physically, mentally, in a relationship.  Think about it and I would argue that you probably had some degree of stress or obstacles or things you had to go through in order to get that growth.

I truly believe that your greatest growth comes outside your comfort zone. It comes from stress. I had a particular time in my life where I was crushing it. I was crushing it in business. I was, and many of you know my story.  And I went through a divorce. I went through a business, massive business change.

I lost one of my key partners. It became one of the most stressful times in my life. But I can tell you this, and I think if you think about, about, back about situations in your life, you could say the same.  I learned and I grew and when situations like that happen again, I know that I can deal with them because I'm stronger, because I'm more insightful, because I'm smarter, have a little more wisdom.

At least I'd like to think so, right? So stress doesn't have to be a bad thing. It can have good attributes if you look for them. Now, obviously, we don't want to have sustained stress. That's never good. But focusing on the benefits that can come from stress?  That's something that can really make a difference in your life.

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Steps to Manage Stress Effectively

So this article I read talks about how the key to this is to learn how to balance that, right? Reduce the bad impacts of stress and capitalize on the good. And there's really three steps they share to do this. And they seem really simple on the surface and intuitive,  but I want to draw them to your attention for the simple reason that if our thoughts and our philosophies and our perspective on life affect our life, then it's important for you to think through Your thoughts and philosophies on life, right?

I want you to think through how you can change your perspective. So the first step is to see your stress. To see it. See it.  Most of us just deny, avoid, label do anything we can to avoid stress or we get overwhelmed and we react to it, right? That's how we handle stress in our life.  But here's the thing, and listen to me on this.

Neuroscience has acknowledged that simply acknowledging  they've proven this. Neuroscience has proven that simply acknowledging stress  can move it from like reactive centers in the brain where you're automatic and you're reactive to conscious and proactive centers. You know what it's like when you deal with a problem and you're just dealing with it and you're reacting to it.

It's fight or flight. It's something totally different than when you're consciously trying to solve problems and being proactive. So changing your perspective neurologically can benefit you. Plus avoiding stress is just completely counterproductive anyway. So it's better to see it and recognize it.

And you can try things like mindfulness and breathing and you know these kind of exercises are ways For you to not only deal with it, but center yourself and control and deal with it in a more proactive manner. So the first step is to see it.  The second step is to own it.  You've got to own it. And a way that I really liked  that you could do this is very simple.

Just recognize that if you're stressed about something,  You must truly care about it because if you didn't care about it, you wouldn't stress about it whether it's relationships business partnerships Profit growth, whatever it is, and when you recognize That you must care. It's a positive spin right when you recognize that you must care about something if it stresses you out this releases And it just unleashes positive energy and motivation that you can use to deal with the stress  because there's going to be stressful times in your life and your journey.

Come on, you don't think you're going to grow and develop and expand and create the results that you want to create, which I know are huge without a little stress or without a lot of stress. In fact, accept it, own it, expect it,  right? I expect it. I know that when I'm dealing with stress, something's happening.

I'm going to grow more. It's this mental discipline, the things that you're looking for. Sometimes, you, if you own it, that's when you know that it's okay, that, that it's okay. And you can move to the next step.

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Using Stress to Your Advantage

The third step, which is use it, you got to see it, you got to own it, but then you got to use it to your advantage.

Now this one I really like because it's this idea that you can turn a problem into a solution, finding ways like they talk about in, all kinds of different business, combat, sports, whatever. Find a way to use your opponent or your obstacle to your advantage as a solution. Ryan Holiday puts it really good in his book, The Obstacle is the Way.

People try to avoid obstacles and the truly successful thought leaders, people that have made growth and progress in their life recognize that the obstacle is the way. Obstacles are what give you strength, or what give you growth, or what help you to become stronger. And if you want to create this life that you were meant to live, you've got to level up.

And that's what obstacles and stress do for you. Think about it. Your body's Literal physical response to stress  is things that you can use. And I, here's the thing.  I know most of you think that stress will kill you, right? Your body's response will kill you. But listen, think about it for a minute.

When you deal with stress or a major obstacle, it increases your focus. It increases your alertness, your stamina, your energy, your awareness, your skills. You get hormones, adrenaline, dopamine, you, you get the idea, right? Stress responses can focus you. Use it. Use it. Growth comes from stress. Think about it.

You can't go into the gym and lift weights and grow without stressing your muscles. You can't, as a corporate athlete, you can't build something big without stressing your and testing your weaknesses. So your perception and your reaction. Stress is more long term, and it's not easy to find solutions, let's say you're saying, man, there's just no way out of this.

I've got this, divorce. I've got this relationship thing. I've got a long term issue. And you can't seem to find a way to take the positive Perspective of it then simply move your attention to the learning and the growth benefits Tell yourself do it out loud write it down in your journal. I'm gonna grow from this I'm gonna learn from this and it'll just trigger that positive response to stress  I'm gonna give you a ton of examples of where stress can help you better Mental toughness.

We all know what mental toughness can do for you Stronger relationships. They only come through stress. They don't come from the easy street. Greater endurance, greater strength, greater physical stamina. I look at, many of you know the logo that I have, the Phoenix. The Phoenix logo is very symbolic in a lot of ways.

It's not just a tattoo I have on my arm. It's it's rebirth. It's growth. The phoenix is an animal that, in mythology, lived forever. It would come to, but it would come to a point where it was at the worst Part it literally would build a nest and burn itself up in flames how many of you have thought your fire your life has become a dumpster fire You could burn up in flames, but it would rise from that a stronger more Energetic more beautiful  bird and that's ultimately what we're trying to do We're trying to help you to find ways to create the life you were meant to live And to do that, sometimes you have to go through stress.

And I'm not talking about searching and looking for stress, right? I'm talking about taking something that typically will derail most human beings and learning to capitalize on it. It's flipping the script. And if your thoughts, perceptions, and philosophies, like I said, create your life,  wouldn't you rather adopt a philosophy that says, I can use stress to my advantage rather than avoid it?

I would.  

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Final Thoughts and Weekend Wishes

And so I hope this perspective and thought on stress and how to use it to your advantage might help you to reframe your life. What you're doing and how you're doing it with you know in your life how you're dealing with stress in your life Or maybe it's just giving you some solutions. Maybe it's giving you some hope Regardless, I hope it's something that'll inspire you to change the way you look at things because Wayne Dyer says one of my favorite Quotes when you change the way you look at things The things you look at change.

And I really believe that. So have an amazing weekend. Have a great time with family, friends, business. It's not a day off, but it's a day to grow. Everything about your life will take you to the next level. And that's my message for today. I hope you have an amazing weekend. Once again, my name is George Wright III and this has been the Daily Mastermind.