Expert Tips for Overcoming Social Anxiety with Sam Rehan

In today’s episode, we’re joined by a remarkable expert in holistic well-being, Sam Rehan. 

Sam empowers business owners to overcome the mental hurdles of networking, pitching, public speaking, and cold calling. 

Today, we dive deep into strategies for managing anxiety, boosting confidence, and thriving in high-pressure business environments. If stress holds you back, this episode offers invaluable tools to transform your approach to business and personal challenges.

ABOUT THE GUEST

Sam Rehan is a Wellness Director, Stress Consultant & Workplace Wellness Teacher, a Holistic Well-being Practitioner and a Holistic Therapist Support, for People affected by Cancer.

Where to discover more about Sam and her work:-

Website:       https://www.samrehan.com/ 
LinkedIn:       https://www.linkedin.com/in/samrehanwellbeing/
Facebook:     https://www.facebook.com/SamRehanWellbeing
Instagram:    https://www.instagram.com/samrehanwellbeing
YouTube:      https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCxKKPqEpn5twpzRg31-EoVA

ABOUT THE HOST

My name is Dave Barr and I am the Founder and Owner of RLB Purchasing Consultancy Limited.

I have been working in Procurement for over 25 years and have had the joy of working in a number of global manufacturing and service industries throughout this time.

I am passionate about self development, business improvement, saving money, buying quality goods and services, developing positive and effective working relationships with suppliers and colleagues, and driving improvement through out the supply chain.

Now I wish to share this knowledge and that of highly skilled and competent people with you, the listener, in order that you may hopefully benefit from this information.

CONTACT DETAILS

@The Real Life Buyer
Email: david@thereallifebuyer.co.uk
Website: https://linktr.ee/thereallifebuyer

For Purchasing Consultancy services:
https://rlbpurchasingconsultancy.co.uk/
Email: contact@rlbpurchasingconsultancy.co.uk

Find and Follow me @reallifebuyer on Facebook, Instagram, X, Threads and TikTok.

Click here for some Guest Courses - https://www.thereallifebuyer.co.uk/guest-courses/

Click here for some Guest Publications - https://www.thereallifebuyer.co.uk/guest-publications

Transcript

Sam Rehan  00:00

Welcome to The Real Life Buyer podcast. In this podcast, you will hear interviews with business owners, entrepreneurs, thought leaders, authors and technical specialists in their field. These professionals will hasten your development, accelerate your career, and broaden your business. Know how now, introducing your host, Dave Barr, interviewing with a purchasing twist. Hello

Dave Barr  00:21

Hello and welcome to The Real Life Buyer. I met my guest today towards the end of an exhibition. Sam had a small, busy stand and was looking close to packing up, but I thought I would try and sneak in a quick chat, as I find her areas of expertise rather interesting. This decision led to a fabulous conversation, as Sam shared her knowledge tips and passion for improving workplace wellness and reducing stress, all with an abundance of joy and plenty of smiles and laughter. Sam Rehan is a wellness director, stress consultant and workplace wellness teacher, a holistic well being practitioner and Holistic Therapist support for people affected by cancer. And that wasn't easy to say, but there we go. So an extremely well versed person in this area of expertise, and in this particular episode, our topic for discussion is all about dealing with the discomfort of trying new things in business. So without further ado, I welcome Sam onto the podcast. Hi Sam.

Sam Rehan  01:28

Hello there. It's a pleasure, pleasure to be here.

Dave Barr  01:33

Well, the pleasures all mine. We've had a few chats over the last few months, and finally, the day has arrived on this rather wet day in the UK, but there we go. That's quite normal for us, quite used to that. I'd like to start off. You have an unusual background. It's, I believe, originated as a scientist that sounds very intellectual and academic. So, you know, that's, you know, sparks a few questions from my head straight away. But your career path kind of rapidly took you into sort of the mind and mental therapies. I'm intrigued, obviously, for myself and for the people to understand how and why your life journey settled in the sort of current area of expertise, I as opposed, into the scientific realm.

Sam Rehan  02:24

Thank you. That is a great question, and recently, I was talking to a group of children about this. For me, actually, it all started from childhood. So childhood growing up, my father, not diagnosed, but looking back now, he had a lot of mental health issues. And for me, as a child and as a teenager, I found that I rapidly had to, very quickly find ways to manage growing up and dealing with his various moods, which was down to his mental health. Moving into London, I kind of left home at a young age, going to London, lots of big change. So change for me, from a child, teenager, going into London, going to university and various jobs, was a huge part for me to understand why. Why is it in certain situations that, you know, it's easy to find solutions, and other times it's life is very difficult, and I've got this thing that I say about how life is brutal, but it can also be very beautiful. And I did a science degree that led me to taking a year out of university, and I was very blessed to get a work placement at a biotech company in the City of Oxford in the UK. I did a year, went back to finish my degree, and then I went back and actually got a job, and they did another five years. So I did literally as a development science scientist, and that was very much about development drugs, growing them up, growing taking various things from research and to scale them up ready for production. But yeah, but the around the mental health and the resources and stress all came really started from childhood, and then I spent a lot of time talking to, I used to work in a lab, and then I what I realized was that I spend a lot of time talking to people in other teams, and then I had comments. People used to say, you're great at what you do, but perhaps you need to be out and about, selling, teaching, and that's what happened. I went and did medical sales, technical sales, and it led me to a wonderful job. Where I traveled the world, exactly 33 countries. I think was about 44 locations worldwide. And I trained medical software. But even with those wonderful professionals, or lots of medics and nurses, medical staff, I used to have a lot of discussion, because many of them would learn from me, and they needed to pass that information on to other team members that weren't present. So that, for me, that connection with people is something that I'm really good at, and I really enjoy that. You know, there's people are very good with words. They're good with writing. I do have that, but I think my thing is connection. And then beyond that, I have what I did was I became a therapist, working with people with trauma, and here I am now running my own business, and a huge part of that is workplace stress. Okay. Because obviously you get the image, particularly in in the biopharmaceutical realm, that you're walking around with a white coat all the time, quite serious doing, I know, calculations and all this kind of stuff, but your personality clearly is completely different to that kind of image. So it's it's wonderful that you've managed to find an area of passion, shall we say, that also obviously was clearly related to a personal matter that you felt very obviously intense about, and you're happy doing it now. You can see by the look on your face for those people watching the video, you're always a very happy, smiley person. I think that's a wonderful indictment of what you do today. Thank you. Thank you. And and it's, it's about and I did a group. I did an older class today, so it's a wellness class seated for older adults here in Sussex. And a large part of what we were talking about is one of the older adults was telling me, or telling the group, I was annoyed about something. And a large part of what I teach is that it's okay. It's not about pretending to be happy. Let's smile. Pretend you know what's happening is not happening. It's about that all feelings are valid. However, in the midst of that, as we've got to, you know, we're working looking after families, older adults, children, you know, we've all got something going on, whether it's financial, housing, work, our own health, children's health, pets in the midst of that, what can you do? How can you resource yourself? Because the more we are resource and we can support ourselves, we can access better health, but the communication and the cooperation, the collaboration, become better. 

Dave Barr  06:59

Yeah, yeah. Absolutely. Now we're going to talk about discomfort. As you know, I'm a fairly new business founder myself, have always worked for companies previously, and so I've had to, as we say, put myself out there, and met a number of new business owners who struggle with challenging situations they've not had to deal with before and felt very uncomfortable. Now, one of the first things probably is entering into the joy, I say in inverted commas, of online and in person networking not always a requirement when you're obviously employed, unless you're in the sales division, should we say, for those people who find that kind of area uncomfortable, what advice do you have for those kind of particularly introverted, should we say, business owners that really recoil from this kind of side of doing business?

Sam Rehan  07:54

And yeah, what you talk about is very common, and I and when I set up my business back in about 2017 the stress part of it. Yes, even for me, somebody who's very outgoing, enthusiastic, really quite first, you know, working with lots of people, I felt discomfort. And the first thing I would say is actually name that feeling. So when that feeling comes up, try and label it. Is it discomfort? Is it being feeling uncomfortable? Is it nervousness? What am I feeling? And in most cases, when you can name that feeling or that emotion, it feels good, because what's happening is you're you're tuning into what it is, and then when you ask that question, when we ask questions, it gives us more information. And the second thing I would say is actually celebrate that you're feeling that. Because when we care about things, we can feel nervous, uncertain. It shows that we care, you know. And then, you know, with so many countries I've been to with work, I would say in my experience, in my 50s, most people are similar. We're more similar and dissimilar. And the chances are that when I've gone into rooms, you know, and I've said to How you feeling, I'm nervous. I'm nervous. If you go up to somebody say, How you feeling, I'm feeling nervous, more likely, even with the people that have done networking for a long time. So yeah, actually, I'm feeling now because we help, we put pressure ourselves, you know, I'm giving, I'm taking some valuable time out to possibly go somewhere new, you know, I'm going to be asked about questions. Will I be able to respond to it? You know? What will they think of me, especially with questions about how, you know, how long been doing a business? If it's matter of weeks and months, you know, we could put pressure on ourselves, yeah, and I would say this is what I do, and I still do it. So I've done networking for maybe seven, eight years, and I still do this. I go early, so I take pressure away from ourselves, I park. Arrive early. I sit in a parked car, make sure you're safe. I close my eyes, because when we close our eyes, it gives us respite. It slows us down. We go into our body. You can perhaps hold your hand just like embodiment, and just take a couple of breaths. Yes, and possibly say something like, I'm going to do my best. I'm going to enjoy it, you know. And look around the room. If you catch somebody smiling at you, perhaps walk over to them and say, Hi, I'm new, you know, you know. And that's the way I would say. But I think check in what you're feeling, acknowledge it's okay to feel what you're feeling. The similar go early, take some time in a car, bring yourself to balance, and then, with your best smile, go in, catch somebody's eye, make eye contact and walk up to somebody

Dave Barr  10:29

Some good advice there, and some of those things, I would say I've not through thought, but just through, you know, experience, gradually migrated myself too. Certainly the bit about getting early. I hate arriving somewhere stressed and agitated, you know, hot under the collar. I possibly gone a bit quick trying to get there to make up the time because of some sort of traffic event. And you're all, you know, the word these days is discombobulated. I keep saying because you're all over the place. You're really not prepared, ready. You're just, you know, flustered, shall we say, as well. So those things to as you say, giving yourself time to settle down, take stock of where you are, and then take some active steps to then engage with people.

Sam Rehan  11:17

Yeah and build in and build in. And I just want to add that, you know, we've, we've all got different energy levels, you know, we can feel, yeah, we can be introverted, extroverted, a mixture. And what I would say is that I know I'm, I'm, I can do this. So I emailed somebody, and I hadn't, I didn't get an email straight back. So probably was thinking, oh, have they received it? But also, I was having a little story in my head about all, you know, maybe they're happy with what I did, or something changed. We can create these stories. And I know when I've kind of engaged with somebody and have had a further conversation, people are shared with me. They actually was feeling nervous, and their resting face can perhaps look, I know somebody. I've got a great friend, but her resting face is very stern. And, you know, if you don't know what you think, oh, I'm not going to approach her. She's not aware of it. But she's my friend, and I know her, and I know sometimes I can look a bit stern as well, depending, you know, if I'm calculating something and I'm thinking about something then, you know, my face looks a bit, you know, my daughter comes off and says, Mama, you're on but yeah, she goes while you're looking at me like that. And I'm not, I'm actually looking at a direction. So having that awareness that we're all built differently, we're all connected differently. So what I'd like you to do, you know as listeners, is, if you see somebody, don't go too into how they look, choose to engage with them, because very quickly they'll say, if they're not wanting to engage, you'll get that message quite quickly. But in most cases, people say, are really happy for you to approach them. And you know, we all want connection. We want connection.

Dave Barr  12:57

Yeah, yeah. Absolutely. Moving on from networking slightly. There are some events I suspect you've been to, many of them, where you have this kind of gruesome 30 to 60nd pitch time. So you know, maybe you've arrived, you've settled in with a few people, you've got chat chatting, and then you've got to sit down along with everybody else, perhaps around a table, and somebody now says, right, we're ready to do our 30 to 60nd pitches. And then you, out of all these people, will have to probably stand up so you're suddenly in this spotlight. Now, I know many, many people kind of loathe these moments. They break out into a kind of cold sweat, almost thinking about it, let alone doing it. So how can we try and take these feelings? How can you manage those feelings so we don't, as some people do, go straight into a ramble. Their mind goes into overdrive, and all that preparation they may have done suddenly goes straight out the window. So how can you help them to keep that level of calmness in their head so they don't forget their lines, and they don't kind of melt into a pool of embarrassment when they start talking. Have you got any thoughts about that? Yes, yes. And

Sam Rehan  14:14

Yes, yes. And I think one of the first things it's very early preparation, reach out to the organizer and ask them, what's the format? I've been to meetings where it wasn't mentioned, but when I've reached out to them prior, they said, Oh yeah, by the way, there is 30 seconds or 60 seconds, and some of it is very straight. I got a particular meeting where they use a timer, and the timer goes off and it's, you know, what people on, what he listening or actually delivering it on our end edge. So prior preparation, reach out, say, what's the format? The second thing is, like anything, this is my experience. So when I joined as a junior scientist back in 1993 there we used to be a weekly catch up meetings very senior scientists you know, people who you know very established, written scientific papers. And here's me age. How old was I? 21, 22 and my my manager, at the time, my managers, manager actually said to me, oh Sam, next next week, I'd love you to do a very short five minute presentation on some of the great work you're doing. I was horrified, because during university, I might have maybe done one presentation, one presentation in the whole of my childhood, teenage years, I'd never done anything. So here I am at a biotech company in a week's time expected to deliver. So what I did was so even though outgoing a part of my childhood because my father I kind of, I felt I didn't have a voice. What I did first was I double checked with the manager. What was wanted. Double check. Double checked so knew what the objective was. So when it comes to networking, what do you want them to know? So perhaps, what do you do? You know? How do you do it? Who do you do it with? So if you're selling, you sell, who do you sell it to? Who your customers and you want to what? What do you want them to remember you for, and perhaps what you're looking for. So you you create the material, and then you practice and then practice more, and you practice more, and then you practice more, and you practice even more when I practiced that talk back in 1993 I practiced over five days, and because I knew I was going to stand up, I pinned it to the fridge, and I kept saying it again and again. Now I wasn't doing a parrot fashion, but I knew it well enough that when I actually did it, I didn't really know how it was coming across. I did it, did the talk, which was about four or five minutes, and I looked at my boss, and he smiled. And then after the talk, he gave me a hug, and he goes, That was so good, but it was good because I practiced it again and again and again. And then what happens is the words become familiar in your brain. When they're not familiar, anything that's new brings discomfort. It's stressful, but as you say again and again, the mind remembers it slots it into very particular places, and it feels familiar. So what you want to do is go to networking using words that you're familiar with, and then while you're waiting, because sometimes we don't know how they're going to go around the room, who they're going to pick on. It's a bit it feels like that. You know, what we can do is your hands. There's a particular thing I teach, and I taught that today, is to press into the center of your palm, press into the other palm, and then you you squeeze the top of each finger, each digit, including the thumb. And what that does is helps you to remove you from some of your anxious thought, back into the body, you know what? And I did this last week, and we're very honest, right? I went to some networking, and one of the presenters wasn't available, so one so instead of two presenters could be one person. Now this lovely gentleman get called up to give a talk, and he had some slides. Now, I'll be honest with you, part of me went into a little bit of stress anxiety, of going, how much you going to talk for, how many slides you got? Now, I didn't want to distract from some of those feelings they're having. So what I did was I was as I was listening to him. So it's kind of, you know, it's not intrusive. It's, you know, it's kind of, we can do it under the table, and, trust me, doing that helps you to relax. Okay,

Dave Barr  18:18

Okay, I've never heard that before. So what is it, you know, those people obviously haven't got the video, when you're pressing on the center of your hand, you know, left to right, and then each the digits at the top. What is it about those areas that kind of triggers, you know, this sensation feeling whatever you want. I want to call it. Are they classed as pressure points, or, you know what, what's there that creates this change in your mindset?

Sam Rehan  18:44

Wonderful, great question, and this is it. If you know why something works, you're more likely to do it. So the first thing is, touch, self touch. When we touch, we're soothing ourselves. We're connecting to ourselves. It leads to the release of various hormones, like oxytocin, which is bonding, connection, feeling of safety. You're right, Dave, there is acupressure points, but the touch acupressure points connection, we're moving as soon as we touch where we're being present. So the mind, you know, it kind of wants to move into the future, which can be very generalized as anxiety in the past, very generalized as as depression. Touch brings us to here, right now. And as you start to do that, that awareness, the other thing that happens as well is this, the second longest nerve in the body is just called the vagus nerve, which kind of runs from your skull into your gut starts to switch on, and it's very related to relaxation and moving away from stress. And you might you we probably see children, you'll see some adults, and you'll see children fidgeting. Yeah, fidgeting. And we have this inbuilt resource, but we can do that even today, working. With some of these older adults, they said to me, gosh, I do that. I'm, you know, I'm a message of massaging my fingers. But if we can choose to do more of that, so you can be at meeting, listening like I did, and choosing to what I call resource yourself and give yourself comfort.

Dave Barr  20:15

Okay, that's one of the things that helps me to focus. And I do see other people doing this is, is when you're in a situation and you're trying to intently listen to something and then engage with people, there's the sort of practice where you put your hands together and you touch the tips of your fingers, and that tries to help to center me, is that kind of the same kind of principle, because there's different places to press, isn't there?

Sam Rehan  20:44

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. It's a very similar thing. I just find that for some people, this can go deeper, and people feel a bit of tingling. They can feel warmth, and also it's, it's touching each of the fingers, at the digits. It's like a process. And you know that the mind likes that. It likes a strategy, you know. And you know, when people work with me, and I work with people, I think one of the ways that I've managed to come this far with lots of jobs I've done, is having a strategy for everything. So whether it's what you're talking about, Dave, that's fantastic as well. That that. And you know, when you've seen there's presenters, people who are giving a talk, and they have their hand in the pocket. It's another form of doing that that, you know, perhaps they're pressing into their thigh, you know, making touch. But actually, what that can do is as as humans, we're very, from 1000s of years ago, when things weren't safe, if you had a stranger, if their hands weren't visible, perhaps that person, that human being, had a weapon. So it's one of the reasons why they talk about if you're presenting or you're talking to somebody, ideally, don't have your hands in your pockets, because on a deep level, we can associate that with being unsafe. Okay, so if you catch yourself doing that, take your hands out of your pocket, either like steeple position, or clutched or like I'm showing you, pressing into the palm, squeezing the top of each finger.

Dave Barr  22:13

Okay, that's good. Moving slightly to a different area, but is an area that is somewhere where people very feel very uncomfortable, and it's an onerous task that is expected, shall we say, and that's when businesses have to pick up the phone and call a prospective client. You know this horrible term of cold calling. So we've had kind of cold meetings, if you want to call it that, with networks, but now picking up the phone seems to be in some ways, even worse, and people will tend to try and avoid it like the plague. Is something I'm not very happy with. I talk to people on the phone quite happily, but cold calling when you're trying to, you know inverted commas pitch, is quite a skill. So there's the kind of fear of fluffing your lines you're speaking with a perhaps an unconfident voice, your fear of being rebuffed, perhaps by their assistant, or, even worse, the decision maker. And that discourages, obviously, you from taking the challenge to pick up the phone. And quite often, people will, by definition, then decide to, oh, well, perhaps I'll send them a text or a message or an email instead, just to avoid the potential for you know, that failure. So what kind of words of wisdom and suggestions do you have for those kind of knee trembling moments when you're not even in front of a person, but you're having to pick up the phone and dial a number?

Sam Rehan  23:37

Yeah,a great question, and some of the information I'm going to share comes from my stress support that I've done with sales team, and also I've done sales as well. The first thing I want to say is that I get nervous about it, but I know why. It's because I'm very visual, so auditory for me, it needs a little bit more energy for me. So I'm very aware that I'm more comfortable talking to somebody face to face, because then I'm aware of body language. I can pick, you know, cues up. So for auditory, for me is a little bit more difficult. However, as part of the job, you know it needs to happen. So again, what I would say is, if you're choosing to, for example, to make call, calling at 11 o'clock to 12 o'clock, 20 minutes, 15 minutes, 10 minutes beforehand, choose to regularly to what you're going to do is to bring yourself more relaxed. Now, the reason why this matters is we're all built to pick up stress. We hear it, we sense it, because it keeps us safe. So if you're nervous, and it's okay to be nervous, you know, because you care about your work, you know you may have, you know, timelines, deadlines, achieve lines to manage to get towards, The more relaxed you can be with your voice, the more you're going to get somebody on the other end that wants to communicate with. Do. So if I've got a call at 11 o'clock, then 1045 1030 I can do a number of things now. One of the things I do is I taught this last week. I actually taught you 204 children at a school age, 11 to 16. And I'm going to share with you first. So what am I going to do? I'm just going to do it, and then I'll explain what I'm doing. I'm going to hopefully, if you're listening to this, I'm yawning, if you're watching me, you would have seen me yawn, and you go, really, yes. So think about when you yawn, and perhaps you can you yawn now while you listen to this wonderful podcast, when we yawn, what we're doing is we're actually we're we're releasing tension in our mouth, in our throat, in our jaw, in our tongue, and we're taking more oxygen. Now the discomfort might come because as children, we're often told, are you bored? Don't be rude, but yawning is there for us to support ourselves? And we tend to yawn when we want more oxygen. We want to move more towards relaxation. It's a fantastic way to release some of that nervousness tension in our mouth and our faces. So I do that. It's a great one. Before you're giving a talk, get yawning so you've got, you've got your call calling at 11 o'clock, 1045 take some time out. Write down if you're very visual, very visual. What are you want going to say? I mean, most, most salespeople, most people do that. Have awareness, but have that in front of you. Practice it, and then also, you know, if you get you know with the other person, I say, hello. How can I help you have some different dialog depending on what they say. The other thing as well is as as humans would all like the unknown, and one of the unknowns on the telephone is when somebody picks up or they don't know how long you're going to talk for. You could say, for example, I'm ringing as as promised, or I'm reaching out. I'd love to speak to you for four minutes, three minutes, if you can choose to let them know how long they're going to be on a phone call. It's amazing. If somebody rings, been called calling, I say I'm ringing, but can I have three minutes? And they stick to it? I'm very happy to speak to you, but if I don't know how long you're going to be, then it, for me, is discomfort. So plan, release tension and let the other person know how long you're going to be.

Dave Barr  27:20

That's, that's quite an interesting one. I've seen some sales experts online talk about this time element and say, look, you know, you open up and say, look, I'm going to, this is a sales call. I want to talk to you for two minutes. If you don't like what I've got to say in those two minutes, then feel free to hang up on me. Kind of thing. It kind of sets the scene so the person knows who you are. While you're calling, you're only going to take a very short period of their time if they don't like it, you know what you got to say, then hang up, basically, yes. So that kind of fits very nicely with some of the things that I've heard elsewhere. It's great.

Sam Rehan  27:56

And control also control. One of the things when we talk about stress in the workplace, humans want some sort of control. That's why choices are really good. You know, if in schools, at a canteen, you know, you've got a choice of this, a choice of this. And if you're creating a proposal, in most cases, we could provide it three choices. As human beings, we want a choice. We want control. So having that control, that you know, would you be happy to speak to for two minutes, knowing at the end of that, you can choose to disengage, choice where, if somebody goes, hello, I'm going to touch it. And you're going, I don't know how long are they going to be on our phone call? A bit like me when I was listening to somebody at network and at one of the presentations at networking, lovely, lovely chap. One of the things he didn't say was, how long he was going to talk for? I don't know whether it was going to be 10. Going to be 10 minutes, 20 minutes, an hour. It gave me discomfort. I don't have control. I might want to nip to the loo. Is it worth me waiting? Is he going to talk for eight minutes? He's going to talk for 20 minutes. So round control. As a salesperson, what can you do to give the other person some control?

Dave Barr  28:57

Yeah, some brilliant advice there. Now, before I ask you about your social media, because you've got lots of information that you share, you've done the incredible thing of writing a book. I always admire people who are authors. Now your book's called, I believe "Laugh more. Soar in your health, career, relationships". Can you share a minute or two on the book and what people are finding there? What nuggets should they be searching for?

Sam Rehan  29:22

Yeah, thank you for asking me. Yeah. So I had a very difficult week about seven years ago, and in that week, I lost a very young member, member of the family. My job at the time was made redundant. The housing I was in became temporary housing. My son was having regular medical support, and he was having it every week. We were in hospital every week. I was mentally, physically, emotionally tired, and in the midst of all that, I found humor through laughter. So watching a film that was funny, he wasn't doing it for me. You know, it was difficult to concentrate. But. I found very young babies laughing, and the scientists in me looked around for that information to say, why is it? Listening to these young babies is helping me feel better? I realized it was 50, 60, years of research to that laughter. There's a form of called laughter yoga, and there's no Yoga is the prolonged laughter that the laughter The Yoga bit means the additional breath work, and then there was jobs. So to cut a long story short, I started to do laughter classes with workplaces, with people with dementia. I've done it with social workers, foster families, people in hospices. So my book, "Laugh more" is a culmination of stories that people have shared with me, and I use laughter as a vehicle to bring in more healthy tips, wellness strategies for workplaces to age happily as an individual by yourself, or if you're with friends, how can you move more to balance and wellness? So that book, I originally wrote 20,000 words, and then in lockdown, I wrote another 28,000 and I've written it that you can just open the book and just choose to read something in there. And then I'm really proud of myself, because I actually went and did or audio. So I've got an audio book as well, which is about six and a half hours. And really, really proud after giving birth to two children, that is my the thing that I'm the most proud about.

Dave Barr  31:22

Six and a half hours of recording yourself. That is a tough one. I should think, my goodness, brilliant. So this, that book's available now, I guess, in all usual media outlets and online. Yeah. So yeah, be great for people to go ahead and have a little seek of that and buy a copy. So that's brilliant. And you have a number of different social media outlets and a website. So can you share where they are? You know where they're at?

Sam Rehan  31:47

Yeah, absolutely. So for workplaces, LinkedIn is probably my chosen way. Sam Rihan, Sam R, E, H, A, N and Sam Rehan, be wonderful to connect with you. Reach out. I have got a YouTube channel. I don't do a lot with it, but there's some little short videos on there, Facebook as well, and yeah, a bit on Instagram. But reach out to me in one shape, form or another, and I'd be lovely. It'd be lovely for me to connect with you.

Dave Barr  32:15

Okay, you've got a website as well. Yeah? Samrehan.com,

Sam Rehan  32:20

It is yes. Samrihan and with an N at the end.com Yes. Do reach out?

Dave Barr  32:25

Brilliant. Yep. So people go and have a look there. So before we say goodbye, one final question, obviously, stress in the workplace, and we're hearing a lot of about stress at the moment, not just in work, but in personal lives. People are struggling at the moment, certainly here in the UK, with various factors and around the world, but I hear that you can manage it by thinking in terms of six main areas now, areas that I believe you have a lot of work study you've placed into into this. Can you share what these six areas are and and what people can do to tap into them.

Sam Rehan  33:01

Sure, sure. So it the six areas come from work done with occupational health and also a framework that's proposed by the Health and Safety Executive in the UK, but it's, it's valid globally, so it's a wonderful way of going. You know, I'm in a workplace. I'm a manager employee. So one of the areas, for example, the first area is about demands. So as an employee, as a manager, where are the demands? So workload, you know, in the environment, even work patterns. So looking at that, are the deadlines unrealistic, is it the environment they could do something about? So first area is demands, and part of that can be resourcing. And then the second area that we talked about is control. So as human being, have you got control in the work that you do? Is it something that you're given support around? Do you have say, and also is, you know, what is it that you know, do you feel powerless? Is, can you have a talk with your manager and really to increase how you do your job? So that is the control. Then the third thing is that relationships, you know, is relationship with people in the workplace. Is it causing anxiety? Is there conflict? And even more, is there bullying? What's the culture? What is the workplace doing to provide support around that? Is there open communication and then support, and then support around, you know, with your fellow employees, support from the management, perhaps it needs to be physical support. Is it emotional support? I mean, a lot of workplaces these days provide counseling with various app people coming in, and then other areas as well. So there, I think that's three areas. There is change. So when is there change in new equipment? Is it round, you know, digital stuff, you know, we're bringing in AI in various parts of businesses. Is there a change in your immediate manager, perhaps in your team, even buildings? A lot of change happens, you know, the last couple of years, where we've been asked to work from home or work part time or hybrid, and then your role. Do you understand your role? Is it clear? Does it conflict with other people's roles? So these are the areas we've got demand, role, relationship, support, change, yeah, control, yeah, and support. So we've got all these different six areas, and it's worth thinking as an individual, as an employee, as an employer, how do I feel about those areas? And it is one area, or perhaps more than one area, causing anxiety and stress.

Dave Barr  35:44

Okay, so I guess each of those areas, then, if you're thinking of an individual as yourself, as the individual, do I particularly have different levels of stress in each of those areas. And once you've identified perhaps the major stress areas, it's then identifying who or what could I do to try and alleviate some of that stress? Who could I speak to about, you know, talk about your role. For example, is there somebody I could speak to about I'm not comfortable about how this role is developing, or am I doing things outside of my role that I didn't expect? Who can I go and talk to about this is there that's that? Is that the way to kind of pinpoint the key areas and then to try and tackle and address those areas? Or what else would you recommend?

Sam Rehan  36:27

Yeah, absolutely so asking those questions, but here in the UK, if there's more than five members of staff, then here in the UK, it's a legal requirement to have a risk assessment, for stress a written risk assessment. So, you know, approach the HR department or your manager, ask to see those written risk assessments. Perhaps your job's changing. Perhaps those risk assessments need to be modified, adapted, edited. So, yes, great, because a large part of this, I mean, I was speaking to a lot a couple of weeks ago, and one of the things that's coming through in some of the you know, table panels that I've talked with other amazing people is as humans, as adults, we have to take some responsibility to manage our stress, but in a workplace, we have got support there. So ask those questions, reach out to the relevant people and say, I'd like to see those things, because perhaps some of those things you're not familiar with, and maybe it needs to be looked at again, and it's something that can get involved in as well. But yes, it is a legal requirement here in the UK to have that brilliant

Dave Barr  37:36

Well, it's been a fascinating conversation today. Obviously, I encourage people to go out and find your book. Certainly, everybody enjoys laughing. We don't do enough of it these days as there's to negative news, shall we say, on the on media and TV and everything else. But so hopefully, everybody will take a leaf out of your book and laugh that little bit more

Sam Rehan  37:59

Wonderful. It's been such a pleasure. Be gentle with yourselves. Take time out what I call focused rest, but deliberate rest, focused work, deliberate rest. So take time out before the networking, before cold, calling. Be gentle with yourselves. Celebrate how far you're coming and take time out to rest and relax. Thank you so much.

Dave Barr  38:20

Thanks, Sam. So there's another Real Life Buyer podcast. I do hope you enjoyed it, and it has given you some ideas and inspiration for greater action and achievement. Don't forget to subscribe so you don't miss out on future episodes, and a five star review would be most appreciated. If you would like to discover more about me and what I do take a look at www.thereallifebuyer.co.uk. Bye.