Episode 92: Pressure Isn't the Problem | How to Take Back Control of Your Stress with Jennifer Stanford

Stress has become so normalized that many of us wear it as a badge of honor. We equate busy with productive, exhaustion with success, and believe the answer is simply to push harder.

In this episode, Dr. Katie sits down with speaker, leadership strategist, and author Jennifer Stanford to challenge one of the biggest misconceptions about stress: pressure and stress are not the same thing. 

Pressure can motivate us and help us perform at our best. Stress becomes harmful when that pressure is sustained without recovery.

Together, they explore why high achievers are especially vulnerable to chronic stress, how to recognize the signals your body is sending before burnout, and practical tools to help you manage your energy, reclaim your agency, and lead—and live—with greater resilience.

Key Learnings

• Pressure fuels performance. Stress drains it. Learning the difference is the first step toward sustainable success. 
• Your body is constantly communicating with you. Poor sleep, muscle tension, irritability, headaches, and fatigue are often early warning signs that stress is building. 
• High performers often ignore those signals. Our drive to achieve and serve others can keep us pushing long after our bodies are asking us to slow down. 
• Manage your energy, not just your time. Jennifer shares four energy buckets—intellectual, physical, purposeful, and emotional—that help build resilience and prevent burnout. 
• Protect your calendar before it overwhelms you. Using tools like the Eisenhower Matrix helps prioritize what truly matters while eliminating unnecessary commitments. 
• Small daily practices make a big difference. Box breathing, grounding, and intentional check-ins can help regulate your nervous system and reduce stress before it becomes chronic. 
• You have more agency than you think. While we can't control every demand placed on us, we can choose how we prepare, recover, and care for ourselves along the way. 

Resources

• Connect with Jennifer on LinkedIn
• DE-STRESSED by Jennifer Stanford 
• Learn more at jenstanford.com

Guest Information

Jennifer Stanford is a speaker, leadership strategist, and stress expert who helps leaders and organizations improve performance by reducing chronic stress and building healthier, more resilient workplace cultures. She is the author of DE-STRESSED, where she shares practical tools to help individuals distinguish between healthy pressure and harmful stress so they can thrive both personally and professionally.

Connect with Katie on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram. You can also get free resources to help you on your purpose journey at www.katiesandoe.com.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:02

Hi y'all, I'm Katie Sando, and this is the Spark Something New Podcast. A place where we explore topics and conversations that can help you find different ways to live, to work, and to lead. I am so glad that you're here. So let's spark something new together. Hello, my friends. Welcome back to the Spark Something New Podcast.

SPEAKER_00 0:27

On this week's episode, we talk about being stressed out. No, I'm kidding.

SPEAKER_01 0:33

And I'm not kidding. We are talking about what is the difference between pressure and stress? What does it mean to be overstressed? What does it mean to be burned out? What are the signals that you can look for before you get to each one of those stages? And ultimately, what do you do about it? This week I sat down with Jennifer Stanford. She is a speaker. She is a stress strategist. Oh my God, like, does that sound awesome? And she's also the author of a book called De Stressed. Specifically, she helps leaders and high performers. If you're listening, you know who you are. She helps folks rethink stress in general. How it can be positive, how can it be negative? How do we build resilience? And how do we perform at our best without sacrificing our well-being? And that's the key. It's not one or the other. How can you have both? Both high performance, high achieving drive and not be stressed out and maintain strong well-being. So we talk through some helpful frameworks. She gives us a lot of practical tools, some that I'm really excited to apply myself, for us to be able to navigate the difference between pressure and stress, what's happening in our own minds and bodies. And then how do we work through it in a way where this becomes a sustainable lifestyle where we can set the goals, work towards the thing, push ourselves in a healthy way and not push ourselves to burnout. So if you are feeling overwhelmed, stressed out, close to burnout, and you're like, I don't know, I'm freaking stressed out and I don't know what to do, this episode is for you. And if you're someone who maybe doesn't feel those things, but every time somebody asks you how you're doing and you're going, oh my God, I'm just so busy, and everything becomes about being busy, and you are too busy to take care of your health, do some things that you know would help your mental well-being, that would help you live a more fulfilled life. If that's also you, because you're too busy to do those things, guess what? This episode is also for you. So I hope that my conversation with Jennifer sparks something new in the way that you think about performance, pressure, and stress in your own life. So enjoy.

SPEAKER_00 3:02

Jennifer, welcome to the show, my friend. Hello, happy Friday. Happy Friday, friends. We are coming at you. We're recording this on a Friday afternoon.

SPEAKER_01 3:12

And guess what? We're gonna talk about. We're gonna talk about stress.

SPEAKER_02 3:17

Actually de-stressing, right?

SPEAKER_01 3:19

Right, like not actually. We're not gonna talk to you about actually stressing out, friends. We're gonna talk about what is stress versus pressure? Why do we need it and all that kind of good stuff? But I thought it was funny because, like, here we are. I know when you listen to this, it'll be a Monday. We're gonna talk about stress. Okay, Jennifer. So to start us off, you have an interesting perspective about stress. You tend to look at it in a different way. So tell us how you define stress that is different from the way that most of us might be thinking about it.

SPEAKER_02 3:55

So I think I put it in two terms. So for me, I would consider myself more of the action-oriented go-getter type, right? And so I love what I would consider pressure, right? So pressure or you stress, E U, S-T-R-E-S-S, is actually a good stress. And it can be a motivator, right? It's what gets us excited before we have a big event. It might be the pressure we put on ourselves. You and I are both runners, right? To compete in a race, you know, whatever those types of pressures might be that motivate us. And a lot of us start with that level of stress. The problem comes when we try to sustain that pressure for too long. And then we our bodies fall into what I call distress, not the name of my book, but D I S T R E S S, which is that sustained pressure that our bodies can no longer handle. So we only have so many resources as a physical body, as a mental body for handling stress. And what happens is there's almost a line. And once you cross it, you've now moved into the bad stress and your body, mind, they start fighting back. And so that is really what I see as the difference is that we have to stay on what I consider the good side of stress, the pressure side, in order to continue to stay balanced and motivated.

SPEAKER_01 5:25

Is this the primarily high? Well, you oh, I didn't even finish the question. This is what happens, Katie. Or this is like funnel brain, where I'm like, I have five questions and just random words drip out. You had described yourself as a high performer, somebody who is driven, action-oriented, achiever. Is this a human problem? Is this a high achiever problem? And by problem, I mean that we perform well under pressure, but sustained pressure of that intensity becomes unsustainable and puts us in a state of distress. So is this a human problem or is this a high achiever problem?

SPEAKER_02 6:11

That's a great question. So I think it is an opportunity to be a problem for both. Okay. Okay. It really comes down to how much I would say is on your plate. There are some people that maybe aren't the highest achievers, but they're extremely busy. They have a lot going on, right? All those plates are in the air, there's things going on. But I find that with that group, they tend to see the signals and become disinterested in pursuing whatever it is they're, you know, they were busy with, right? They they see the signals differently. High performers, unfortunately, have that drive and want to continue to reach their goals. And I'll be honest, you asked me if it's a human problem. I find it, yes, to be a high achiever problem, but in the the thousands of people that I've talked to on these topics, I genuinely believe that women have this tougher. And it's not thinking so much about the work life roles having to be so, you know, typical, if you will, but especially this, what I would consider social responsibility that women have that becomes our detriment of not saying no. I can do everything. And that's really where I was, right? I can be the CEO, I can be the mom that I need to be. I will volunteer in my community. Oh, you know, Sally down the street, you know, needs a meal train, you know, let me get that going. And so I find that when we are high performers plus servant leaders, potentially, right? Whatever that looks like for us, that that even becomes a bigger problem because we ignore the signals that our body and brain are giving us because we are so interested in achieving whatever it is we want to achieve, even if it's for good reason we're trying to help other people. Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_01 8:15

It does. What I was thinking about is, and when I asked if this is a where it was coming from that I was asking, is this a human problem or a high achiever problem as you see it? Because not always, but generally, those that are driven, that are high achieving, tend to put themselves, I'm I'm laughing because I'm speaking from experience, tend to put themselves in this situation. I'm I'm choosing to do the thing. I'm choosing to set the deadline, to set the goal, to to work towards this thing. And and I continue to choose it. And so if I'm never, which I want to talk about in a little bit, but if I'm never de-stressing or completing the stress cycle or however you want to phrase it, then it becomes sustainable. And then there are a lot of times where things happen, and I don't want to say happen to us because I don't want to foster a victimhood mentality, but things happen that we don't have control over. So the control that we have for high achievers is I'm choosing the deadline, I'm choosing the goal, I'm choosing to the race, I'm choosing this situation. And then there are quite a few times where the choice is not ours. The thing is set and we must respond to it. And so, regardless of whether you identify as a high achiever and choose to step into, we are often put into high pressure situations that are outside of our control. And so as you see this, that's where it was coming from is this a human problem where so much is being asked of us. Maybe some of it we choose, a lot of it perhaps we don't, and yet still feel a sense of responsibility to respond to it. And you mentioned motherhood and whether that is self-imposed, expect not self-imposed, like self-imposed being a mother, but the expectations around motherhood, whether those are self-imposed andor societally or familially, culturally imposed, that it is both by choice and not. And so that's where I was uh going at is right now in this day and age, is this a human problem because of the speed at which information is moving, business is growing, and it's like we're being asked. There's it's almost like so many of us are being shoved into being high performers, even if you wouldn't self-identify that, because of the demand of work, life, parenthood, all of that.

SPEAKER_02 10:44

And I think you hit on it when you talked about information, right? Because we are in this age where information is coming so fast where we expect to give instant responses and receive instant response. And I think that is part of the issue of not protecting our boundaries, perhaps. Because here's the the thing we all have 24 hours in a day. And while there are a lot of things out of our control, not everything is out of our control. And so I do think that there's opportunities to make choices, even when they're hard, to try to protect some of that balance in our own lives. And for the sheer fact that when we do that and we protect that energy, it allows us to give more. I know for me, for the longest time, I thought I was the best in all of these areas, right? That was my perspective. Because I'm giving so much, because I'm so busy for this long period of time. That equals success in all of these areas. Where when I really got truthful with myself, I wasn't the best in all of those areas. I was not giving my very best in all those areas. There were places that were suffering, and typically it was not work, unfortunately.

SPEAKER_01 12:07

Well, you phrased it in an interesting way, and uh, you had me think about hustle culture in a new way. And what I mean by hustle hustle culture is my value and worth is tied to how busy I am, how productive I am, that it almost I don't even want to say almost. I'm not gonna use qualifying phrases. It is as though the more stressed out I am, stressed out, the more stressed out I am, the more important I must be. And so why does a leader and or a high performer often mistake that unmanaged stress, being stressed out as success?

SPEAKER_02 12:48

You know, it's so interesting. I think, you know, the studies tell us in most industries right now, over 60% of leaders would identify with being overly stressed. And that's really not industry discriminant at this point, which to me means everybody feels that way. And I think it's because the hustle culture that you talked about, or trying to self-validate that way, that that is how I can prove that I'm accomplishing X or Y. It really comes, you know, comes down to, I mean, I can think of conversations, you know, just saying, oh, I'm so busy, or I've been working on this, you know, for a week straight, or, you know, whatever the case is, like that somehow is is a validation or a predicament of output, right? Or outcome, I should say. You might be outputting, but that might not be the outcome that you desire. And so I think that's the real challenge with hustle culture and why you've seen so much about can you learn to do more with less? And can we be more strategic with with our time and our efforts? And that's why I always say we can only control our attitude and our effort every day. There's the other things that are just gonna drop in that we can't control.

SPEAKER_01 14:02

I'm laughing because I feel like this is a setup question. So I'm warning, so I'm warning you now. What came to mind is in the work that you do and what you're describing, and I and I believe in this, and it's and it's something that I have been trying to do for myself and for others is to fight or challenge hustle culture. Okay. And because it is burning people out. People are burning out, leaders are leaving, and in particular, women leaders are leaving because they can't they can't do it all. You can't. And I I hate it when people say, you know, women can do it all. And and then some people try and qualify it, well, we can do it all some of the time. And I don't, I'm just like, it's just, it's just horseshite. Anyways, and and what I was thinking of is there's something still driving this forward because business in many industries is growing more than they're than the workforce can handle. And so we're asking our workforce to work harder, to do more, to put in more hours. And so, therefore, if we're asking people to downshift, or if if the solution is to downshift, then then we're essentially asking business to step back or be willing to leave some revenue on the table. And I don't, I don't think people are there yet. And so I'm curious your perspective on that. Is that not the solution? A solution is for us in business to reimagine business success. That's why I was like, yeah, this is a setup question, because I don't know. But I'm like, there's hustle culture and like we're pushing against it. And I think of like I have clients in the engineering space, and there's literally not enough engineers coming out of college for the work. They literally just don't have enough people to do the work. And so they're asking their current people to do more, and people are stressed the frick out. And so is it well, then you're gonna have to take less work? I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 16:18

Please respond. Oh, interesting. So I think I have a slightly different take, and that is we don't know that as business, we need to accept less or leave revenue on the table. I think there's two dynamics that we can really utilize. One is AI, and that's a whole other podcast. But I think there's there's opportunity to ingrain that so that people aren't working as hard in every area, right? So I think that's there for us. But the other thing that I have really challenged organizations is that when we are stressed, as an example, our bodies and our brains are not operating at 100%. Right. So here I am paying, just let's just think of some of the numbers that I shared. So let's just say, you know, I'm I'm paying a group of leaders, everybody's a leader in some way, and 66% of them are telling me that they're highly stressed. And I know that when they're highly stressed, they are not operating on all cylinders. So now I have a group of leaders who aren't operating on all cylinders. Therefore, we're not challenging each other enough. We're not creating enough psychological safety. We aren't finding better solutions to make our business better. So I am paying a dollar, if I want to break it down this way, and I might not be getting a dollar back. And so that's the problem for me with hustle culture that when we don't address the stress issue, we're not getting 100% of our people. So are we purposefully driving revenue down because we're not getting a dollar for a dollar? And if we made those wellness investments, could we get people to give us a dollar 10 for every dollar we spend? And now business is doing better. And so many times when I go into teams, it's a it's not adjusting the technology or the process, it's adjusting the way these people show up. And that and you don't just get that with a kind culture or a team that feels they have this great camaraderie. You have to be able to challenge thinking and and try new things and fail fast. And that doesn't work as well when our bodies and our brains or our emotions are too stressed out. It just doesn't.

SPEAKER_01 18:28

I love that reframe. Thank you. And I don't know if it's I don't know if it's true or right, but I love it. I'm gonna go with it. What I mean by that is like, I don't know what we think right now. And what I mean what I mean by that is like, I don't know, I'm sure there's probably some really brilliant person out there who has studied this. But I I buy into that, no pun intended, but I buy into that that when we are when we are overstressed, that our productivity is not to your point of using a dollar, it's not matching a dollar. And so we can try and squeeze more out of it, but the more we squeeze more out of it, probably the lower the productivity goes and dysfunction. And so then we're spending more time mitigating internal cultural issues, and and so it continues to go down. And so it maybe you don't have to throw more people at it or or or leave dollars on the table. But rather, if we can help people truly embrace individually and culturally well-being, and I don't know, maybe I hate the word well-being too because I feel like it's so overused, but whatever. The that thrive, if we help them thrive, then they might be able to produce more than a dollar's worth of value. And when they reach that point where it drops again, it's time to take care. And I don't, I hate to like, I don't want to reduce human beings to dollars, but that was a great metaphor. So I I love the reframe is that when people are overstressed, they are not able to give the very best and they know that.

SPEAKER_02 20:02

So so when and they become guilty, sorry to cut you off, but then they feel bad about that, and so they try to work harder, right? And so we're perpetuating the problem and the cycle.

SPEAKER_01 20:14

Yeah. Okay. So then you were talking about like in the body, and then pressure is good, stress or overstress is bad. So, how do we know when the feeling of pressure, when pressure fuels performance versus pushing us into an overly stressed state? How do we know when that pressure is too much?

SPEAKER_02 20:35

So we definitely get signals. I always tell people you have to tune into your signals. There are some very common ones as an example. If you, you know, we we track our sleep. We have these great, you know, watches, you know, whatever we use that that track our sleep. Sleep is one of the biggest things that contribute to lowering our stress, getting those cortisol levels back in check, and allowing us to wake up refresh. So if you wake up as an example and you have a headache here, right? Or you press the base of your neck at the tip of your spine there, and it feels tense or even pushing in your shoulders. Those are just very simple things that we can do that say, Oh, I'm carrying some tension. Because what happens is we tend to carry it above the heart, if you will, our tension. And so if we're feeling that here, we're probably carrying some. Waking up your jaws tight, some people grind at night or clench. That's usually because we're experiencing stress. And unfortunately, that disrupts our sleep, right? And that just starts things on the wrong path. Having to then get up and caffeinate, right? Maybe more than normal, right? A little caffeine is certainly great for us, but more than normal, well, that what that's doing, unfortunately, is that is affecting our gut, right? Our gut health is, we call it the second brain, right? The gut health is so important for regulation and for our ability to think and be innovative. And so now we're doing something that we're low on sleep. We've now caffeinated up. That could be hurting our gut, that might cause us to make a poor food choice. I'm just kind of going through the cycle here. Right. And then maybe we're skipping a workout, whatever the case may be. We still haven't really addressed all the stress and we go back through the cycle. And so, you know, we can have heart palpations, right? That could happen for some folks. You might feel just extra tired. You've had a good night's sleep, but you wake up and you still feel tired and you're not sick. So those are other just easy indicators to look for. I know for me, as an example, I know that I am stressed when I wake up and I have that tension in the base of my neck. I know that somehow I slept funny or I was holding my shoulders up. And so that to me is you better get outside and start grounding, start your day off right. You know, you've got to get this back in check. But for the longest time, as an example, I ignored that. And I was like, oh, I just get to the chiropractor when I get a break in this schedule. I'll get, you know, it's always something far away that I would get to. And it would just, you know, compound, right? Our breath, if you pay attention to your breath work, if we are, you know, sighing more often than normal, you know, that might be our heart tensing up, right? So our body gives us signs. We just so often ignore them and write them off as something else, right? An upset stomach. I talked about the gut. A lot of people get an upset stomach when they're feeling overly stressed. And again, this just you just think about the cycles. And then again, one for me that's becomes pretty obvious for everybody around me is usually I'm pretty low-key. I might snap at somebody in my family or be, you know, being short with someone. And that is out of character. And so that's a good indicator that I've had to become more self-aware of instead of, you know, blaming the people around me for driving me bonkers.

SPEAKER_01 23:58

Uh, along the lines of signals, those are some initial indicators of overstress. What are some initial indicators of the stress is reaching critical mass, like a chronic point where we are approaching burnout or we're at burnout?

SPEAKER_02 24:18

Yeah, that's tough. I really think by the time we get to burnout, that's where a lot of the negative talk is what we need to pay attention to. As people are getting close to that, they very rarely get to that point with a smile on their face at all times. I find that sometimes that I might be smiling to you, Katie, while we're online, you know, for a for a meeting, but behind closed doors, I'm like, you know, is there gonna be one more meeting? How much more am I gonna have to do? Is anybody else doing their job? Right. We start to, you talked about kind of that victim mentality, but I think it starts to come in. We start to feel like everybody else isn't carrying their load and that all of it is on us. That is something that teams can really look for, is just are we feeling like everybody's carrying their load? I often will ask this in group discussions and ask people to, you know, they can write it on a sticky, or if they have enough psychological safety, they can say it out loud to try to check themselves because our mental capacity at that point starts to shift. All these same body signals are happening and they might be happening more. People that that I work with that suffer from panic attacks, as an example, they become more frequent as they start getting that point. Again, a lot of that is because our bodies are run down. Yeah, right. We're not in a state of readiness to be able to handle this. But it is those I call them mind tricks, but the things that our brain is doing to us that's telling us that we are now the hero here, the only person that can make this work. And therefore, we will keep going, keep going. And unfortunately, people have usually a physical break. Something happens. They like for me years ago, I ended up getting pneumonia. I was, I was going, going, going. I was out of work for a month. That didn't do anybody any good. Right. And so sometimes our bodies will literally collapse on us. And the older we get, you know, you're you're at risk of stroke, of you know, heart issues, right? It's not always a heart attack, but it might be, you know, heart issues. People go in because they said, you know, I'm not feeling good. My heart's not feeling right. And, you know, there's just so many things that, again, our body and our mind are trying to tell us. But I also think there's some practical things that we can do, which is paying attention to our calendar, paying attention to if you use like an Eisenhower matrix, what's urgent versus what's important? What do I have on my plate? And do I really understand all the things that I'm signing up for? And am I managing that? So I will often tell people when you are starting to get there, you need to do a do you know what a an Eisenhower matrix is?

SPEAKER_01 26:59

Well, because I had two questions. One is I have no idea what an Eisenhower matrix is. So I want you to unpack that for us. And also, two, you were like, look at your calendar. And I was like, wait, what am I looking at my calendar for? So those two practices, when you say, look at look at your calendar, what are we looking for? What are we doing with it? And two, what the heck is an Eisenhower matrix? Because now I want to learn about it and I want to use it.

SPEAKER_02 27:20

Yes, you probably know what it is. You just haven't you haven't heard it called that. Okay. So it is where we make like a quad chart. Yep. Okay. And on it, we have things that are urgent that require our attention, right? And then we have things that are important, okay, and then we have things that are not urgent, okay. And then in the bottom right, we have things that are not important. And I do this as a practice every single week. I look at my calendar and then I plot them on that chart. And I look to see are there the things, the only things I should be really working on are urgent and important, right up there. Other things I can either delegate out or even better, if they're in that bottom right quadrant, I should delete them. I probably don't even need to be doing it. And so when we manage that with our calendar, what we often find is, and I'm I see this in what I would consider the collaborative cultures where we really want to make sure that they're including everyone and everything. And when they do that, what you're doing is tying up somebody's calendar. And so we should be in meetings, right, that require our decision or our input, right? And everything else, there's probably a different way to handle it, or somebody else can go. And so that's why I say putting those two things together, because if we cannot justify our calendar, if we cannot justify the things that we have put on our plate, then we probably don't need to be doing them. And it's just a quick way to look to see, am I getting too far ahead? And the other reason for doing that is that, as an example, two weeks ago, I had a very full, awesome calendar. I was very excited about it. It was a very high pressure week. There was a lot going on. I think I did five talks in one in one week. I had other different things going on. However, because I managed it to my calendar, I knew they were high priorities. What that signals to me is that I need to be ready for that week. So week before, I'm making sure I'm getting to bed on time every night. I am sure that I'm drinking half of my body weight in water. I am mate in ounces of water.

SPEAKER_01 29:40

I was like, dang, woman, that's a lot of water.

SPEAKER_02 29:42

I make sure, right, that I got my four runs in that week. Yeah. I wasn't gonna get to do it the next week. And so our bodies can prep for these situations. It's a beautiful thing. And I made sure that I met with my therapist that week before. I made sure that I was doing my journaling, everything to prime me to make sure that nothing was gonna knock me down that week. And so using that method is just a great way for us to say again, these are the things that we have at our fingertips that we have control over. And we don't need some special magic potion in order to be able to dig in. We just have to create space. And I think one of the challenges that I find is that people are going, going, going so much, they're not even creating the space to say, let me check in with some of these indicators, right? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:30

I like, I love that the Eisenhower method uh or matrix. I don't do it as a matrix, but I'm like, oh, now I'll start. That's how I organize my to-do list every day. And particularly on Monday mornings, I look at my week ahead. And if I have time, I'll do it a Friday afternoon or uh or a Saturday morning. I'll look at the week ahead. What are the items that are important that are critical? Like the, you know, maybe I'm prepping for a workshop or I have a podcast interview or I'm speaking. And so then what are the things that I need to accomplish that supports those very urgent or very important events or matters? And then that gets prioritized on my to-do list. And then I then I typically will have a whole bunch of other stuff that is maybe I'm curious about or I want to read about. And so I guess you would call it like not urgent. And I guess not much makes it on my so not important stuff doesn't make it on my to-do list. I have this, I call it a parking lot. I have a parking lot page on my Microsoft OneNotes where it's stuff that like, oh, I've been curious about, or I don't know, like I don't want to, maybe you want to do if I have five minutes, but it's not on like my active list. So um, but I like the Matrix because it um if folks aren't used to it, it's a great visual reminder. And so I think then that gives you uh you're creating a very visible to-do list based on your calendar. And it's also not not not what's quick and easy, but what's urgent and important and not urgent and not important. So I love that. In your book, you talk about, and in your work, you talk about managing your energy, not managing your time, which I love. Because every time I hear someone talk about work-life balance, I need better work-life balance, or I don't think, I don't even, I don't agree with that term. I don't think it should exist. I think it's impossible because when you are a knowledge worker in a digital age, there is no longer a separation of work-life space. They have become integrated. And I understand people don't have the language to describe anything else. And I think it's an energy balance issue that one aspect of their life is drawing upon their energy so much that they're feeling exhausted, depleted, and not the best version of themselves in the other space. So work is demanding so much of their energy and focused in their four priorities that they have nothing left to give to their kids, their relationship, and vice versa. So for you, what does that shift from managing time, time management, to managing energy? What does that look like from your perspective in the work that you do?

SPEAKER_02 33:17

So for me, so I categorize what I would consider four energy buckets. And you just almost started to touch on this and you're saying something I'm curious about. So there's, and this is what I would consider leadership flow. This is what balances us throughout, you know, any day or week. But we have intellectual energy, which is what am I doing to keep myself curious? Right. Keep my mind sharp. What are what are what are the items that I'm willing to learn about as an example, as a growth mindset? So that's intellectual energy. There's physical energy, right? How am I sleeping, moving my body? That's the one most of us are familiar with. And that tends to be a pretty good gateway for the others, right? If our energy is up physically, then we're more interested in learning, right? As an example. The other one is our purposeful energy. And this is a big one. This is, you know, do I know why I get up every day? Right. And I think when we get in the go, go, go mentality, we sometimes lose sight of that. So I think we have to make daily investments into our purposeful energy. That can that can look like a Bible study if you're prayerful. It could be meditation, it could be volunteering in your community if that, you know, something that drives your purpose. We have to keep that link. So now we're sharpening our mind, right? We're staying curious with something, we're keeping our bodies moving, whatever that looks like for us, and we're aligning to our purpose. And then the fourth energy bucket is our emotional energy bucket. And that is what am I doing to really just keep my what I would consider my emotions in check and not necessarily emotional intelligence, although that's important and it's a big piece of it. But as an example, you know, for me, am I spending quality time with people that mean a lot to me because that refills my bucket, or am I always putting that on the back burner and therefore shortchanging myself? And so what I have committed to and what I challenge other people to do is we don't have to spend an exorbitant amount of time to refill those energy buckets. We can spend, as an example, just a few minutes each day. I would even, I would even barter with people that five minutes. If you could give five minutes in each of those areas, and I always tell people stay off the TikTok, and you all of a sudden got 20 minutes back in your day, right? Or the threads, you know, looking at dog videos. I am definitely guilty of these things. But I'm saying we Hey, listen, that helps my emotional energy when I look at running in dog videos.

SPEAKER_01 35:58

No, I'm kidding. And I do have a lot of people that say that, and I think that's perfectly if you're well, some some people I just was in a meeting today.

SPEAKER_02 36:05

Well, somebody mentioned that. If that is what refills your bucket, then you set aside that time as an example. But it's intentional. I think that's the difference instead of just kind of going through the day. If I have time to work out today, so for me, the way that this manifests is every single day as part of my routine, I fit this time in non-negotiable. And so I have, you know, grounding and purposeful time first thing in the morning, right? Then I move to my workout, right? And then I spend time before I start responding to email or anything else. What is a skill set that I've been investing in? Right. And so I pick one for the month or for the quarter, and I spend just a few minutes. Is there an article I can read? Can I practice? For me, it's been, you know, developing things in Canva or using an AI tool. And so spending just a few minutes getting smarter in there or reading an article about stress. And again, there's so many tools at our fingertips now that can even make that easier for us, right? To absorb information. And so I make a point to do that. And I also, where I used to say to, you know, my girlfriends, hey, you know, we'll get together once a quarter, right? Now it's, you know, confirmed once a month. Or, you know, my husband and I, I can't, you know, work every night. We have to make sure we have dinner as a family. Those are non-negotiables for us, right? And so that fills my bucket. And if if I can't do all of those in one day, I can in one week. And so what we find is that keeps our energy at a sustained level. And again, when our energy is up, that's our biggest currency. In a group for people, energy is contagious, positive or negative. So if we're bringing the right energy to the room, even on days that we might not feel 100%, just bring in our best energy, somebody else has some to give us that day, right? It just all connects.

SPEAKER_01 38:02

I like the I love, I love the energy buckets. And by the way, totally kidding. Um watching running a dog video as well, highly entertaining. It's totally an excuse. Like, I don't think it fills my emotional energy bucket. I think what it does is distract me and then I get sucked into the algorithm. But I love, I love the energy buckets. Is there something to be said for also addressing what drains the bucket? So I love that you started with, and maybe that's the primary is filling the bucket. So, what are the things that we can do? How can I be curious? What can I learn? What can I read? What can I explore? What can I watch? You know, what can I get an engage in physically? How do I fill my body with and take care of it, move it, nourish it, rest it, you know, purposeful energy? Like what remembering like what this life for me is all about and emotional energy, like the community that I'm involved with, people. What about like also? So, what I was thinking is emotional energy. You know, oh my word, spending time with this person, while they're a dear soul, they really drain my energy bucket. Or, you know, purposeful energy. I probably should do this, but you know what? It really drains, it doesn't feel purposeful. Do you use it that way too? Like, not always about cessation or stopping something, but also noticing what maybe drains those buckets. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 39:30

Because I think those again are signals to us, right? So I've I've seen this time and time again, especially in volunteer opportunities, right? So if you volunteer in your community, I can't tell you how many groups I've worked with where they say, I just feel so burned out of this. And I think it's because their bucket hasn't been filled and it becomes a chore and obligation versus something that really refills their bucket. And so I think we have to pay attention to those things. And we either, if if we have no choice, like you were saying, if we don't have a choice to self-select out, we then have to be aware of the other buckets and what can we refill as an example to balance those out. I personally like to just do an evaluation of those because you know, there's gonna be periods of time people go through in their life, you know, perhaps your marriage isn't the best this year, right? I've been married 30 years, so there's gonna be good years and bad years, right? Not necessarily days and and so if that as an example was going to be a drain on me, I might have to invest in other areas to be my better self. Now I will say, being very transparent, when there has been difficult periods in my marriage, as an example, when I made those intentional investments in other areas, I showed up for my husband as a better, stronger person. And it was amazing how those issues dissipated. Right. And so I think again, the energy is on us. And so I use that as a personal example, just say, because I think probably all of us have been there. But at work, as an example, a lot of this has to do with too, just the way our brains are structured. I am not naturally a logical person. I can be very strategic. I know how to, you know, have logical conversations. But if I'm in the workplace as an example and I'm in a role where I am consistently having to try to problem solve and break down issues and solution, my brain's gonna get more tired than if I'm in a role where I get to build relationships and pour into people and teach, because I'm much more of a relationship-oriented person than a logical person. And so, even just the way that our brains work, those are signals to us if we're spending too much time in those areas that we're gonna start to reach that burnout phase or, you know, getting sick of it phase before we hopefully get to burned out, right?

SPEAKER_01 41:55

Jennifer, are there let's just go back to I love the energy buckets. Are there other like from your book or or work that you do, are there other practical tools that people that you could give to listeners to help them de-stress? So we need to manage our energy. We need to fill our buckets, watch, you know, protect them. And knowing that there is this, I don't I don't want to say fine line, there is this, and for each person, this nuanced space of what is like peak optimal pressure to now I'm starting to become overstressed. So walk us through like, I don't know, another practical tool or framework that listeners can use to de-stress. And I know it'll be different for everyone, like what that level is, but is there something that you suggest?

SPEAKER_02 42:45

So there's, I think I talked about this a little bit earlier. So I will say more generically, it's create space to listen to your signals because they're going to be a little bit different. So at least be willing to say, you know what? I need to do a check-in with myself. And I need to be very honest with myself about where I think things stand. Right. I have a number of assessments that you know free that people can download on my website where they can, you know, look at their purpose, look at their stress level, even for their families, where they can do it's not a score, but they can go through and just ask themselves some questions, get some tick mark, get some data that then they can use, right? So I think, I think there are some things we can do to assess where we are.

SPEAKER_01 43:30

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 43:31

What I would say from a very like operational perspective, one of my favorite things is just like simple box breathing. So I think in a moment when I am stressed and I try to make time for this multiple times a day, even if I'm not stressed, just to be regulated. But I found when people are stressed, when I teach them this very simple tool that I did not create, it's been around and you know, people in yoga and everywhere else utilize this all the time. But just stopping for one minute, you know. Breathing in and holding it for four, right? Closing my eyes if I can, and then exhaling and just doing that four times gives my body an entire chance to reset. A lot of people struggle with, well, I try meditating, I'm not good at it. I can't. Everybody can put their feet on the ground, everybody can put their hands in their lap, and everybody can close their eyes and everybody can breathe. And by doing that, I have I have seen that as a practice that that has changed people's days. And it hasn't been something that they've had to block off an hour on their calendar. You're talking about, you know, a couple minutes here and there to try to, you know, create that space for yourself. And I've been amazed, men and women, how they've said, wow, that really changed the game. I didn't realize how tense I was, and how they were able to do that, you know, before a meeting that, you know, potentially could have been more tense than it needed to be. And so I say that as a very practical tool because I do think there are a lot of a lot of opportunities to calm ourselves down, right? To not expect anybody to swoop in and save us and to manage our own energy in a way that, again, enlightens us to what the signals are telling us. But if we are constantly in this state of chaos, that's all we're gonna know. We're not gonna be able to create that space, you know, to change things. And so I think if we can start with some of those very simple, quick practices, yeah. Now your brain's in a place where you can say, okay, now let me create a little bit more space as an example, and let me evaluate my calendar if that's where I'm gonna start or do an inventory of how am I feeling in each of my energy buckets. Right. I do that for every team meeting that I have with my company. I'd look at the energy buckets and I want them to, you know, to give me a happy face or a sad face. That's all, you know, I don't keep it very complicated. But where are you in each of these energy buckets? All right, so tell me what do you need? What's going on, right? Just so that we can evaluate where we are. Because as an example, if I'm going into a strategic session with a group and I have them just do a quick analysis of their energies and I see that most people's energies are low, am I really gonna then try to do this change initiative with them? Or, you know, that might not be the best time. And so when people are in this state of readiness, we're just gonna get a lot more out of them and we're gonna be able to give a lot more as well.

SPEAKER_01 46:25

For folks listening, one of the one of the things that I think is powerful. I don't know why I said for folks listening. Of course you're listening. I don't know. For those of you who aren't listening in in the outer wells of the What I love about the practical tool of box breathing is it brings you back into your body. And I've been mindful in my own journey, I should say intentional, in my own journey this last year to come more into my body, which sounds woo-woo, but really in Western culture, we have bifurcated the head from the body, and we are so in love with the mind and strategic thinking and intellect and ideas and innovation. And if you really look at our discourse as a professional culture in the United States, it is all from the neck up. And yet, what you're describing, Jennifer, is that the signals we get are coming from our body, not from our brain. Our brain, somebody told me the other day, I think it was another guest, like your brain is also your biggest enemy. And so when you are feeling those times, breathing brings you back into your body. Another practice that I will do if I feel stressed out or overwhelmed is how can I engage the senses? So I can either do it right where I'm at, or I'll go outside and I'll say, What are five things that I see? Then what are four things that I hear right now? What are three things that I feel? What are two things that I taste or smell? And then, like, what is one thing that I taste? And it what it's doing is telling your body you are safe and you're okay. And it quiets the mind and engages the senses in the body, which then gives you the space, the really the cognitive space to be able to say, okay, what do I need to do to re-evaluate, to re-center, to reground?

SPEAKER_02 48:31

So yeah, you know what I find I love that you do that because I've told you I live a little bit out in the country. And so when I do that, I will go, like I say, I try to most days go out and ground myself outside. I love being there. But when I do that exercise, I will stand there and say, you know, what do I hear? And I will often hear cows and ducks and chicken, not mine, but neighboring, neighboring farm. And it brings me such joy, right? And then if I can see one in the distance, if I smell the cow dung, I'm getting happy. This girl gets happy by that smell. And I just it all of a sudden will I, you know what it gives me? It gives me a sense of appreciation. I all of a sudden have this feeling that I have to, wow, how blessed am I to live out here? And it completely changes things. And again, it took five minutes. And so I'm with you. I don't believe that this is woo-woo at all. I think our brain holds the chemicals that can either make or break us, right? And they send them based on the what our body is asking for. And if we can train our bodies to ask for the right chemicals, then we're on fire in the right way, right? And that's what we want to be, right? And so I think all of that, again, much more is in our control than we have either been led to believe or the lies that our body and mind are telling us, right? And so my real passion and mission with this book, and why I think I've been so excited about it, is that I know that these are things that people can do. And I'm not a doctor, right? These are just things that I have learned through business that make a difference. And what I have seen in groups is that this actually will drive innovation, right? I've seen companies come up with better ideas and be more successful, not just because, you know, they've let everybody do whatever they want, but because they've been focused even on their individual and then collective energy. And they've reported we have better ideas, we've come up with more solutions, we've been faster to market than our competitors because we made those investments. And to me, those are business practices that we can't afford not to do.

SPEAKER_01 50:37

Jennifer, last question. For those listening who feel who feel stuck in overstress and they hear us, they're like, Bax breathing is great. I just I'm breathing right now and it's not gonna get better. You know, I'm joking, I'm joking, but I'm not joking. Because I found that sometimes when you're or when I've talked with people and they are in that state of overstress, it feels because you don't have the full capacity or space. So, what is one thing, first step that they could do today to help them de-stress to come out of it? If there's like you're completely overwhelmed, what's like the first thing you tell people to do?

SPEAKER_02 51:19

I honestly that it's this stop and and just take a beat, right? This what moments can you can you take just to kind of do that breath? And then I think, you know, check in with yourself. Like you said, how am I feeling in each of those energy buckets? And a lot of times, again, I have a girlfriend that I was talking to, and she goes, I just I feel like I keep waiting for someone to come save me. And what I realize is that nobody's coming, right? I am the CEO. I nobody's coming. And I said, but gosh, you can come for yourself. And so let's just talk about, you know, what that looks like. And so even just having that quick conversation with someone that you trust that says, Hey, I'm feeling overwhelmed. I'm just wanting to, you know, start getting this under control. I've learned a few steps, right? Would you like to be my accountability partner? I think that can go a really long way. And sometimes I advise people maybe don't pick the person that you're closest to in the world because that reveals a lot of vulnerabilities that maybe we're not willing to shed right there. Right. So maybe pick someone outside of your typical, you know, work or home network that you can again just have that conversation. Say, I just need to create a little space for myself. Then and I again, I think all of us have 24 hours in a day. And so hopefully all of us can find a small pocket to just get the ball rolling. And then what I find is once we do that, it continues. And now we're able to get more control each day.

SPEAKER_01 52:45

Yeah. Jennifer, thank you so much, folks. I will link to Jennifer's website, her book, Destress, um, so that you can connect with her if you're interested. You can access the tools that she talked about and your social media and all of the things because I know this is stuff that so many people are craving. And so thank you for feeling for responding to the call to do this work. Thank you for giving us so many good nuggets of wisdom and frameworks. And I just loved chatting with you, my friend.

SPEAKER_02 53:15

Thank you. I too enjoyed it. Thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_01 53:21

Y'all, thanks for spending some of your day with me. I'm really grateful for you. And I hope this episode sparked something new for you in the way that you think about your life, your work, your leadership, and your relationships. If it did, I'd love if you would give us a review on whatever platform that you listen to your podcast. And share this episode with anyone who you think might be interested in listening to it. And finally, let me know if there are any other topics that you want to see covered in future episodes. You can connect with me on LinkedIn, on Facebook, on Instagram, all under the handle PBSando. My friends, take good care of yourselves. Keep shining beautiful lights. And I'll see you next time.