The Comeback Chronicles Podcast
Welcome to The Comeback Chronicles, where raw truth meets unwavering resilience. Hosted by Terry L. Fossum, this podcast reveals the untold stories of remarkable individuals who’ve faced crushing defeats—only to rise stronger, wiser, and more determined.
Through candid interviews, you’ll hear about moments of failure, heartbreak, and doubt, as well as the transformational steps that led to victory. This isn’t just about inspiration—it’s about equipping you with actionable strategies, like Terry’s signature ‘Oxcart Technique,’ to overcome challenges and ignite your own comeback story.
If you’re ready to break free from fear, shame, or self-doubt and move boldly into your conquer zone, The Comeback Chronicles will empower you with the tools, mindset, and motivation to rise above and achieve your next great success.
Get ready to turn your setbacks into stepping stones and reclaim the life you’re destined to lead.
The Comeback Chronicles Podcast
Breaking Down Anxiety and Building Confidence: Bradley Rausch's Story
Bradley Rausch shares his journey from debilitating anxiety to helping entrepreneurs build million-dollar businesses through personal branding and referral systems, revealing powerful frameworks for overcoming mental health challenges and building resilience.
• The CRAFT method: a framework for accomplishing things when you don't yet have proof you can succeed
• How to break down seemingly impossible goals into manageable steps while building evidence of your capabilities
• Why anxiety serves as a protective mechanism—understanding the chain reaction of fear
• The importance of focusing on returning to baseline after emotional triggers rather than preventing reactions
• Why giving yourself "grace" means allowing yourself to be bad at something new
• How to shift from controlling external circumstances to managing your internal response during panic
• The mantra "don't ask for the situation to become easier, but demand that you become greater"
• Why doing hard things consistently makes everything easier over time
• The difference between necessary pain and optional suffering
If you're ready to get over your fears, self-doubts and past failures and break through your comfort zone to reach the pinnacle of success in every area of your life, head over to terrielfossum.com to pick up your free gifts and so much more.
If you've been stuck in fear, self-doubt, your past failures and you're ready to break through your comfort zones to finally reach the pinnacle of success in every area of your life, then this podcast is for you. Here's your host, Terry L Fossum.
Speaker 2:L Fossum. Hey, this is Terry L Fossum, and welcome back to another edition of the Comeback Chronicles podcast, and my guest today is going to be fun and it's going to be a little hurtful and it's going to be insanely helpful for you. My guest today is Bradley Rausch, and Bradley has worked for the past six years helping entrepreneurs and consultants as a brand and operations strategist. Now, in that time, in that short six years, he's helped grow a coaching company from about $650,000 to $1.5 million in revenue.
Speaker 2:This guy you want to listen to. He's led the launch of 60 plus LinkedIn and TikTok accounts that have built referral systems that cut acquisition costs and improved retention Both very important things, right? You want to do that in any business you're in Now. Bradley now runs Level Up Influence, working with founders to help them build out seamless client referral channels, a personal brand that attracts only the highest LTV clients and helps get the founder out of the day-to-day operations of their business so they can live life, have fun and do what they're good at. Now, more than all of that, he's got an incredible comeback story that is going to help you, and he's going to give you some step-by-step points to help you get through whatever you've gone through, whatever you're going through and whatever you go through in the future. So, bradley, thanks so much for joining me on the podcast.
Speaker 3:Thank you for having me man. I will do my best to live up to that. I will do my best to live up to that intro, Thank you.
Speaker 2:Well, that that intro is just based on what you're doing, man. So you're, you've already lived up to it. You're just building on that right. Appreciate that. Yeah, absolutely. So you've got some amazing stuff you're doing.
Speaker 3:You're very, very good at what you do and you've built a heck of a company. You're helping other people build up theirs, which is fantastic, but that's not the way it's always been right. No, not exactly. So the biggest thing that I always focused on you know, I'm a relatively young entrepreneur I'm 26 and I'm extraordinarily, extraordinarily fortunate to be where I'm at. There's been people that have given me chances and shots of things when they had no business doing that, and I'm completely honored and humbled by that, and so I think the biggest thing that I know Terry, you and I connected on, but also, just in general, something that I'm passionate about is, yes, there's the business side and yes, there's the content for that, and I've got my LinkedIn content reflects a lot of that. But there's also decided to start making a lot of personal content focused on anxiety, mental health. Basically, the kind of motto I've developed for my own podcast is frameworks for life's hardest moments, and so I'm excited to share some of that during the podcast today. But back to your thing of like. That's not the way it's always been for a.
Speaker 3:For a little bit of context on my history. You know I growing up there are many, many people in many, many unfortunate places in the world. I'm very fortunate overall. However, there was a lot of toxicity, mindset, mental health issues with with my family, just collectively, that got passed on to me and, to be completely honest with you, looking back at it today, I wouldn't want it any other way because it's built me into the person that I am, and without that adversity I don't know what would be today. And so the point is going out of the home life, getting into my own world, getting into adulthood.
Speaker 3:I tried the college route Not for me. Then I went to working for some mentors, getting into the high ticket sales world, found that I also didn't align with that world just for a purpose, for a reason of the focus of that world, and the focus of those efforts is, I think, rather manipulative and not something I want to do Like. I pride myself now on being able to set up again referral systems for people that sales isn't even a question. Sales is a, is a, is a a. If you follow a, you know, follow procedure, you serve a client in a certain way.
Speaker 3:Sales is a foreground conclusion, and so that's something that I'm really, really passionate about setting up, and so I found a way to align that kind of ethos that I had with what I do for work, which I'm really fortunate to do, and so got into client success consulting and then built that into what is what is now my, what is now my company, and so there's a lot of you know, I'm sure, a lot of business things we could go into, but I know on the show we kind of wanted to get into the personal thing, so that's really kind of again just relates back to my, to my story of just growing up and figuring yourself out.
Speaker 2:Well, I know there's a lot of things that you didn't talk about during that You've kind of referred to, you've referenced and that's okay. Again, this is a safe environment. We talked about that before we started recording. That's okay. But I think everybody can infer there's some stuff that happened. Would that be valid?
Speaker 3:Absolutely the. The short of it, um, if, if, because, like I'm fully open to, to sharing all of this, the short of it is um, unfortunately, the. The family dynamic that I was was brought up in, valued the opinions of others being much more important or being the sole important thing over the opinion of yourself, and so things like, you know, self-confidence, self-worth, any sort of form of self-appreciation, self-respect, self-love, was not even, not even. Not only was it something I didn't have, it was, it wasn't even an idea I was familiar with. By the time, you know, I was 18, 19. And, if you can believe it or not, it was to the point where you know, the kind of codependency relationship that I developed with my parents was to the point where you know, 17, 18, by the time you're 17 or 18, you can do most stuff on your own. Yeah, I was, I was completely, completely dependent on, on them. Even even up to that age couldn't be in different, different zip code, let alone a different general area than them. Otherwise, extreme panic, extreme anxiety. I struggled with a lot of very intense panic attacks when I was younger, just really rooted in, not knowing if I was going to be okay, like not knowing if my ability to protect myself was there. And so now again, I'm 26. Now what I've worked on for the last 10 plus years therapy, a lot of work on myself and research and working with mentors is just that ability to not only protect yourself but also just to know yourself and trust yourself.
Speaker 3:And my philosophy, if you will at this point in short life thus far, is I love to have frameworks for things, for whatever reason.
Speaker 3:I'm a very visual person. I have had to, you know, work on the skill very, very hard of navigating through things that didn't have a clear path. I was always, you know, if you think about the trade off of, it's like do you want a clear path to get to somewhere, but you know the path is going to be really difficult, or do you want a not so clear path to get somewhere, but you're not sure if it's going to be difficult or not right? It's kind of that like it's kind of that coin toss. I was always on the side of the former. I was always as you turn the lights on in the car, I'm fine, but obviously it's not always that way. And so, again, my kind of philosophy, with my podcast and the content that I talk about over on Instagram and things is frameworks for life's hardest moments, but I'll give you the spoiler. I'll give you the end of the story which I love to give, which is the most important framework is how to trust yourself when there is no way forward. Love it.
Speaker 2:Say that again. Say that again, Bradley. That's so critical and I know there's people listening right now. That's going to hit home for so bad. Say it again.
Speaker 3:Most important framework is how you trust yourself when there is no framework, when there is no way forward.
Speaker 2:When there's no way forward. Man, I love that. Tell me more about it, Cause you just got a lot of people's attention right there.
Speaker 3:So you know that where, where I, my whole kind of I guess a journey with this started. So my, my goal is eventually to to dip into, you know, public speaking. I've got my consultant coming in and keeps me very busy right now. But you know, if you're, if I'm, if I'm dreaming big, I'll say you know, say he'll bloom, or or you know, a Peter Crone or something like that right Kind of kind of a situation.
Speaker 3:But the content I make on my podcast and Instagram is is again just focusing on those frameworks, and so I guess I'm starting off by sharing kind of the first one that that really kind of built it all to life, which is, I call it, the craft method. So I used to get really disoriented. Honestly, it's the word about social media content that talked a lot about. You know, there's there's something difficult you want to do, there's a hard thing that you want to face, there's something you want to do but you don't have the proof you can do it. How do you actually go do it? The answer I was always served was go do it, go make the proof and I'm like just do it.
Speaker 2:Just do it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but I'm like if you're somebody like me, human, who has struggled with like rampant panic attacks, not being able to get up out of bed, you know, for you know God knows how many years uh, depression at times. You know, like, like, like you know, self self-assuredness is like like how to just do it. What do you mean? Just like this is not Nike, what are we doing? And so I'm just like I need a way, I need I need a framework, and so out of that and therapy and research and talking with experts and things came what I call the craft method, and so CRAFT each stands for a point. So this is essentially for a framework for how to do something, create an outcome in your life that you don't have yet the proof that you can actually accomplish. So it's five things. So number one C is commit to what time arrives and oftentimes when we will try and do something new. The example I always use when this one is like weight loss. We try and lose weight and we say we go to the gym, go work out on the, go, go, you know, work out on the treadmill, walk 30 minutes, something. Come home and then we say, oh well, I'm going to go do that tomorrow, but then we wake up tomorrow and we don't feel like doing it. We allow ourselves the ability to renegotiate. Don't give yourself that ability. If you set a time rise and you say, listen, it doesn't have to be a long one. Sometimes people will say three months or six months, I'm going to do this. No, three days. Like, let's start small. For the next three days I'm going to do this and I'm not giving myself the ability to renegotiate. It builds up that part of your brain that gives yourself the evidence that you can actually do it. And it's not. It's not going to be pleasant, don't expect it to be pleasant, but you can do it and get more into that in a second.
Speaker 3:But so that C is commit to a time horizon, r is going to be to reveal your actions and your step-by-step plan. So a lot of people will go I use I use like building a business example for this one. A lot of people will go hey, I'm going to build the next billion dollar business. Cool, timmy, can't come back to you next week and say, hey, did you build the next billion dollar business yet Not how it works. So you have to reveal your goal but then also the action steps you're going to take. You say, hey, timmy, I'm going to set up half my website, because then Timmy can come back to you next week and tell you and ask you if you did all those things. So it's the steps that matter, not the general outcome, because that's what people can hold you accountable to. A is to act with curiosity, not criticism.
Speaker 2:Example I use Real quick. I want to go back. It's the steps that count. Say it again, because I want to make sure that this stuff's really hitting home with folks. This is, this is good stuff, bud.
Speaker 3:It's the, it's the steps to count, not the, not, not not the outcome. And to that point, it's, you know, it's. It's the difference. If you like, look at a rock climbing wall no-transcript. People feel terrible about themselves If they, uh, don't lose the 20 pounds. You want to go from 180 to 160.
Speaker 3:I used to be, I used to be a personal trainer, so this fitness leads a lot of my examples. If you want to go from 180 to 160, uh, if you say, instead of, instead of saying, oh well, until I, until I hit 160, I can't feel good about myself. That's what most people do, whether consciously or subconsciously. If, instead, you say, once I get to 179, I'm going to throw myself a little party and then I'm gonna go to 178, and then I'm gonna go to 177, it's, it's just, it's it's.
Speaker 3:It's a nuanced difference, absolutely, but it is an important one, because you know you have to. You have to give yourself the benefit of the doubt and you have to give yourself the ability to actually build, build the build, the momentum which wraps into another kind of there's a lot on this point which wraps into another thing that that is really, really crucial. I talk about a lot which is is giving yourself grace. So everybody talks about that and I think it's a really big buzzword on socials and content and things, but nobody really knows what it means. Everybody's like, oh well, it means just go easy on yourself and forgiveness. My definition of grace is this is not to go easy on yourself. The definition of to give yourself grace is to do something and be okay with the fact that you're bad at it.
Speaker 3:We, you know it's. It's going from, you know, unconscious incompetence to conscious competence. Right, and so it's like going from a point where you are good at something, or start going from a point where you're bad at something to where you're good at something. It takes so many tiny little things and if you try and jump from again the bottom of the rock climbing wall to the top, you never give yourself the ability to. Yeah absolutely.
Speaker 2:One of my phrases is do your best and forgive yourself for the rest. You know, if you're doing your best, then come on, man give yourself a break, give yourself grace, right?
Speaker 3:Yep, absolutely, absolutely Yep. So that's so. That's so, that's R and then A is CRA is to act with curiosity, not criticism. So very oftentimes we will, you know, we'll assume how we think something's going to feel or say, or what something's going to say, or how something's going to be, and that's just simply our survival instincts, our fight or flight, trying to fill in the blanks when we don't have full context, especially again, because this is something you haven't had the proof that you can do. Or, to be more specific, with our 10 million year evolved brain, this is something you can do without dying or without bursting into a ball of flames, because that's how your brain is wired to show you and to tell you that everything's going to make you burst into a ball of flames because it's terrified for you. Your brain is to survive, it's not to thrive.
Speaker 3:So active curiosity, not criticism. You don't know, like, if you're lifting weights and you're on a 10th rep and you're like, oh, I don't know if I can do an 11th rep, instead of saying, oh, it's probably going to hurt, oh, I'm probably going to drop the thing on my thing and I'm going to check myself. It's going to be horrible. I don't know what the 11th rep is going to feel, like I've never done it before, like I genuinely have no information. Maybe I do it and maybe there not criticism, so that's A.
Speaker 2:F is frame if then plans. So again, I'm not advocating Real quick. I want to back up again on that one too, and of course I love your workout references, that's what you're used to. But for another example of that, just for people in their daily lives, what would give me another example of that for daily lives, their business, their entrepreneurship or just anything? What would another example of that be?
Speaker 3:I talk with a lot of. A lot of my clients are, are either are or are becoming content creators on some level, cause I work with a lot of people on building a personal brand, which includes content. So oftentimes I will start working with somebody, especially at the very beginning, before they know just how much of a kick in the ass I will give them and I will say sorry. They will say to me oh, I don't want to make content because. Or I don't want to do this part of the business because, oh, it's going to be like, it's going to be really hard and people are going to judge me. I'm not going to, it's not going to get, it's not going to get anywhere, it's not going to get any views, it's not going to be. You don't actually know. And the reality is is that, even if that is true, you're going to get farther by not believing that than you will by believing it?
Speaker 2:There you go. I love that. Say that again Say it again.
Speaker 3:So, even if all the things in your head are telling, even if all the things going through your head, the fears, the BS, the narrative going through your head about something, even if it is true, how does it help you? So you have to so with with the very subjective narrative that goes through our head a lot, with literally everything in our life. Sometimes it gets to a point, especially if you have a very large fear, a very large, you know emotional reaction to something. Sometimes it can get to a point where you have to ask is it actually beneficial to listen and to act upon what's going through my head right now, Because you can't control your thoughts. You can't control your thoughts and you can't control your feelings. So is there a benefit to acting upon what's going through my head? And sometimes the answer is yes and sometimes no, and that's just a skill you have to refine is to know the difference.
Speaker 2:Love it? Yeah, Love it. I think that's real important for people to understand. You don't have to keep those thoughts in your head. You can develop new ones. Who gets further? The person who is fearless or fearful Well, fearless. So it's just, we all have the same thoughts. I'm sorry, but we do. It's just what we choose to focus on. And I choose to focus, just like you're saying, on that next step, on my goal, whatever it is, instead of what could hold me back. Son of a gun, you get past it. Funny how that happens, isn't it?
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely Absolutely. So then the F is for frame. If, then plan. So I'm not definitely not advocating for you know, have every single thing mapped out, planned out. But you know.
Speaker 3:Back to a weight loss example, it's like if you have a history of going in, you know, after you go to the gym let's say you binge eat or like you have, you know you, you just you go to the gym and you're like, oh my gosh, I earned this pack of Oreos, I'm going to have the Oreos. That that was my thing before I lost weight was Oreos, loved Oreos. And you say, oh, of course I'm going to have a pack of Oreos, of course I earned it. Gym, I will have three Oreos and then I will go eat something. Good for me. If you have a history of if you, let's say, if you get into a situation where you don't wake up earlier, you don't wake up on time, and then you skip the gym for the day, you say, instead of punishing yourself and this, this is what really this one is focusing on is don't punish yourself, just stick to the plan. So, instead of punishing yourself and saying, oh, I woke up late this morning and that means that I am not going to get to the gym today and I'm fat and horrible, this is awful, and I'm going to work out 10 times tomorrow. You say, okay, I didn't get into the gym today and I'm not going to have time to do it tonight. Okay, fine, I'm going to go, for I'm.
Speaker 3:The most is if you do something consistently and you get progressively better at it. And that's where giving yourself again that grace component matters is because at the beginning you will suck at anything new, right, absolutely. And so grace is giving yourself, grace is allowing yourself to do it even though you suck at it. Yep, fantastic, absolutely. And so that's F's f, and then the last one, which most important one is, is t, and that's going to be tolerate, the short-term discomfort.
Speaker 3:So I think this is this is actually the one that really started it all for me. I I learned this in combination of therapy, but also working with a mentor of mine. His name is rye sports um, he's a, he's an author, he's a men's relationship coach, really an incredible guy. And the just to fit it, to fit it into the acronym, I say tolerate, short-term discomfort, but what it really is, the phrase I really like to use is don't ask for the situation to get easier, but demand that you become greater oh, say it again say it again don't ask for the situation to become easier, but demand that you become greater.
Speaker 3:So, the point with this one is it's whenever people think about improving their life in any way, shape or form, the automatic response that I've seen from so many people that I see online and friends and colleagues, et cetera is to try and use the same space, the same, the same effort, the same energy that you have within you to to better process the negative thoughts and feelings that are going through your head, to better process the story. So the analogy I use for this is like a house. You take this same house with the same amount of square footage and you're trying to rearrange the furniture, or you can walk around the house a little bit easier instead of always bumping into the furniture. So that's what a lot of people try to do and that's absolutely valid. That is 100% fair. I love it and I actually have a framework for how to make that process easier. So I'm all for it.
Speaker 3:But all I'm saying is that there's a whole other side to that where you can actually make the house bigger. Throw on an extra bedroom, throw on an extra garage in the back you can make the house bigger. Your capacity for handling negative emotions and feelings can actually increase with time. So instead of asking for the situation to get easier because you can't control the situation, instead of asking for you know the negative thoughts and feelings that are coming up to go away or asking them to to you know, asking the situations causing them to change or how it affects you to change. Fine, great, do that. But I think the more powerful component that not enough people talking about is talking about is actually increasing your capacity to tolerate the negative things and to do the thing you need to do anyways.
Speaker 2:And how do you do that?
Speaker 3:I love it Absolutely. So the it really it really breaks up into, like I said, there's there's the two different ways to think about it. So there's taking the same space, making it smaller, taking the same space and the same issues Sorry, got that. Taking the same space and better utilizing the space to process the negative thoughts and feelings that are in your head. So rewriting the furniture. Then there's also taking the same furniture that you have and the same layout that you have it and improving your capacity. You know, adding space to the house, adding square footage to the house. So the two different ways to kind of go about that. Um, on the on the former side you've got of taking the same thoughts and feelings and basically consolidating them into something that's more helpful. The framework I like to use for this is called it's um, three A's, triple A it's awareness, acceptance and adaptability. So this is it's actually goes into what we were talking about before, on before we got into this um, where, before we talk about the podcast, um, which is how to I forget what the exact, I forget what the exact prompt was, but essentially how to go from awareness to acceptance and then to adjustment. That was what it was.
Speaker 3:So, going from a lot, a lot of people will struggle, I think, with accepting the full repercussions of a situation, which is why they stay stuck in it for way longer than they should or way longer than they want to. So here's what I mean by that. You've got, let's say, somebody who is, who is not skilled at finding a good life partner, right? So they say I'm not skilled at finding a good life partner, great, they've got the first day. They've got the awareness. Down the acceptance part, they go okay, so I accept that I have this deficiency and that's all that they accept. Like that, that's the, that's the, that's it. There's nothing else. Deeper beyond that, how does it actually change? How are they actually, then, the last day, going to be able to adjust? Well, they can't, because nothing actually changed. If nothing changes, nothing changes.
Speaker 3:So, going back to the top awareness, I'm not good, I'm not skilled at identifying a potential life partner. Okay, great. What does that actually mean? That actually means that maybe you're impatient. That actually means that maybe you're not good at spotting a good, decent human. Maybe that means that you I don't know are not letting people in quickly enough or efficiently enough, or whatever that means for you. That's what you really need to accept.
Speaker 3:That's where the acceptance comes in. So that's taking again the same kind of tools and resources and distilling something down into into a process that you can much, much, much easy, much more easily create the life that you want, that way that you'd work with yeah, yeah, exactly. And then, on the other side, is the method that we just went over, so craft method, which is taking the experiences that you are facing, because that's really what it is when you're trying to expand the square footage of that house. It's essentially the same thing as asking yourself how do I do something when I don't have the proof that I can do it? Because the only reason you haven't expanded that house so far is because your brain is sitting there saying I'm terrified, I don't think that I can. So then that's the method.
Speaker 2:Right, and those self-doubts, those fears and everything else creep in and hold you right there the whole time. So you've made a mention that anxiety is actually there to help us, not harm us. So I mean, that's kind of interesting. People do not look at it that way. So you've got a step-by-step method to rewrite an internal limiting story. What is that and why do you think anxiety is actually there to help us?
Speaker 3:So when you really get down to it, there's a lot of BS that our head will come up with. I know we've talked about it Doesn't it though.
Speaker 3:And the reality is it is not there to harm you. If you think about when you are popped out of the womb, popped into the earth, you don't come with anxiety, you don't come with fear. You are nurtured on what to fear, on what to be anxious of. And so what will happen over time, speaking with experts and research on this, what will happen over time is that those things, those those core fears that you were taught or nurtured to be afraid of your brain will also then come up with walls to place around them. So not only are you afraid of the little, of the, of the thing in the middle, you're also then afraid of this thing that's adjacent to it. And then if you're afraid of that thing, then you're also afraid of this thing, and then the wall, the barriers, just keep getting bigger. So I'll, I'll share with you. It's relatively very, very personal, but again, I'm I'm so open and I share all this on my podcast anyways, and I share this on others podcasts. So the, the um, the scenario in which this this affects me and how this works for me is I, whenever I was younger, my anxiety would always kick up when, when I was around my mother, ironically enough, because my mother was, in my mind at the time, my absolute savior, but because of our negative and very toxic relationship and my anxiety, I would always get much more panic whenever she was around. Yeah, it was also the thing that quelled it. So it was a very interesting dynamic.
Speaker 3:So, in order for, in order for my brain to protect me from the emotional you know, the emotional pain that my mother would cause me just with her issues and everything is, it would have anxiety attacks and I would my, my, my heart rate would elevate, I would get nauseous, I would have everything like that. So I would have these anxiety attacks. Over time, that anxiety attack developed into a fear of vomiting. Because what happened when I had the anxiety attack? I got nauseous and then, if I throw up, it's going to be the end of the world, like it.
Speaker 3:So not only did my brain develop a fear of interacting with my mother, but it developed a fear of being nauseous. And if I'm afraid of being nauseous, that also means I'm afraid of throwing up. And if I'm afraid of throwing up, I don't know what's going to happen when I throw up, because I haven't thrown up since I was a baby, so I don't remember what it's like, so it must just entire story. So it turned into this thing where I'm afraid of throwing up. And I have this fear of throwing up, but it has nothing to do with the original thing that my anxiety was actually doing. So that is the kind of the process, if you will, of kind of what anxiety has the potential to do, of it will try and protect you, try and put all these walls up to hold you away from that one core situation or one core interaction that you are really afraid of.
Speaker 2:So what do you think your anxiety is stemming from? Because, and again for all the listeners, odds are you know somebody. If it's not you, you know somebody that has challenges with anxiety. So this is a perfect opportunity to understand them better, what they're going through and if there's any way, you can help them or at least again be there for them. So I think we're really getting into the crux of the conversation right here. For a lot of people, a lot of the listeners, so when I see somebody that has that and again we all know somebody like man, where's this coming from? So man, where's this coming from? So Bradley, where's this coming from?
Speaker 3:Where it's coming from is very interestingly, when you interact with somebody, unless it's somebody you're very, very, very close with, when you interact with, let's say, 99.9% of the masses and they are at a point where they're emotionally charged. The ironic thing is is that usually they're emotionally charged with something that again has nothing to do with the initial thing that actually brought on the anxiety in the first place.
Speaker 1:So for me, for instance since I moved in.
Speaker 3:I'm I'm I'm doing much, much better with this now. But when I moved to New York about two years ago, uh, there was, there was a. There was a time there for about six months where, moving to a new city, I got into a new relationship. A lot of some old anxiety and patterns kind of came up, and so I was some of that kind of panic thinking resurfaced and again, fortunately today much, much better and have a much better kind of wrangle on it. But at the beginning of moving to the city it was very difficult and I would. It was kind of like so I would get on the subway here, right, the subway in New York goes under the tunnels, under the rivers et cetera, and we don't have tunnels back in. We don't have subways back in Iowa. So it was like this panicked situation where I'm afraid of vomiting came up on the subway in a new city that I'd never been in and my brain's like, oh, I haven't been afraid of that before, let's go see what that would be like.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's funny.
Speaker 3:And so it's like I'm sitting there probably, you know, probably on more, I don't know, maybe really was really only intense, maybe three or four times, but I'm sitting there hyperventilating on the subway, standing in a corner, and somebody would look at me and I like, face flushed and breathing heavy and everything.
Speaker 2:So that had a trip yet even more. You know everybody's staring at you. Now you're freaking out. That's got to escalate things right there.
Speaker 3:Oh, oh my God, absolutely Cause. Then it's like, oh my God, what happens if I do? And then it's like, yeah, I think of me, how do I get home, et cetera. So, anyways, back to your thing of like, you know, with the connections, the emotional attachment, I had had nothing to do with it. So by the time somebody actually interacts with you, odds are, it probably has nothing to do with the, the thing that you really, that your anxiety was creating the walls around in the first place. So, a, keep that in mind. B, the you know, the. The.
Speaker 3:The biggest thing I think that I wish more people took into account with you know, I'm not going to say anxiety, but I think, just with interpersonal connection in general, is If you can train yourself just before you have a gut reaction, before you emotionally react to what somebody said, what somebody did, what somebody thought, what somebody expressed, anything Before you have a personal reaction to it.
Speaker 3:If you can just train yourself to take an extra one second, 10 seconds, to ask yourself how is this not about me? Like, how is this about, in fact, about what the other person is doing? And not only is it going to, I think, alleviate for me, at least it's, it alleviates kind of your personal involvement and your personal worry about what they're doing and then kind of your not to say right, but you're right then to have a reaction. But it also, I think, for me at least, it just turns on this mode in my head where it's like wow, okay, wait, how can I actually help this person? Because I know that wasn't about me, right, right, so you know, because again, if you're encountering somebody like that, they're probably in a not so good place. So I think that for me has been huge, or at least that's what I would hope that somebody would approach me with in that moment.
Speaker 2:Well, and that's critical, man, because we're all wondering, right, you know, man, because we're all wondering, right, when that's going on, like, okay, how do I best help this person? Not judge them, not make it worse but how do I help them? How do you help yourself when you're having a panic attack and I know you don't have as much anymore, but back when you did how do you help yourself, pull out of that? You're on that subway, you're tripping out, right, you're afraid you're going to throw up. Now people are staring at you and you're going underneath the flipping water and everything else. How do you pull yourself out of that? You, you did, you got off that subway.
Speaker 3:So, so and and before I answer that to your, to your point about it doesn't happen anymore. It's a day by day operation, pal Like. That is that is the thing. It's, um, the biggest takeaway, the biggest thing I always try and tell people when they jump into therapy, when they first start to get you know, mindset, mental health advice, anything like that.
Speaker 3:The first thing I'll always tell people is that it is really one of those things where it is about the journey, it's not the destination. Because if you and this is something, honestly that I think kept me stuck for for a really long time is if you, if you always try and find the framework, if you always try and find the next step, if you and this is something honestly that I think kept me stuck for a really long time is if you always try and find the framework, if you always try and find the next step, if you always try and find the way out, you kind of miss the forest for the trees kind of situation. You miss the journey where you actually healed and where you actually got past the thing that was terrifying you, which means you have to go back and go through it again to actually, you know, to get to it Like the lesson is going to keep coming until you've learned the lesson, that's significant.
Speaker 2:That's really significant.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so one of the. I mean, and it's like you know, don't try and don't. You can absolutely try, and you know, cheat the test and get the answers, but if you do, you're just going to have to come back and take it again.
Speaker 2:So Okay. So let's dive into that, because, again, this, this is the Comeback Chronicles podcast, and you're right in the middle of the comeback, right? The how you do it and what you're saying is, if you just try to blow past it, it's just going to keep happening, keep happening, right? So then what do you do to learn that lesson?
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so, going back to the subway situation, I'll put it this way Whenever I first encountered that, I was not thinking this, so I would say how I got through it at first was a lot of deep breaths and waiting for it to pass, which sometimes it's where you're at, and that's fine.
Speaker 3:But if let's say that happened to me, let's say that happened to me now, like with the tools and the resources that I have and how I've advocated for myself. This this past year specifically, has been very, very significant, um, for me. I've made my podcast, I've talked to a lot of people, done a lot of research I've I've really like, I've really increased my, my tool, my tool set, my capacity for all of this. So if this were, let's just say, happened to me now, um, here's what I would focus on. Number one, when everyone is thinking about when, when, when you're in that heightened state of emotional thing, it doesn't have to be intense, it can just be something. It's just like, oh, this is bugging me today, or, oh, I'm sad about this today, or whatever.
Speaker 3:Um, oftentimes people are always thinking about the things that are happening to them. They're, they're taking, they're taking the things that are external, and going in instead of the things, instead of the power and the capability that is within going out. So what I mean by that is, you know, say, I'm sitting there, nauseous, afraid I'm going to vomit on the subway. Essentially, in that moment, I have two choices. I can either think about my ability to change the situation, which is next to none. Or I can think about my ability to successfully complete the situation. To successfully To complete it not get out of it.
Speaker 3:To complete it, two different things go to go into it, right, yeah, um, the kind of the kind of thing that I, that I I get. I get this from. I get this from leila hermosi, which is she. She was interviewed on a, on a panel, something long time ago and she was interviewed. She was asked how do you, how do you handle really difficult, you know, emotionally charged things? It's like something does something, somebody does something or says something, or something happens to you a panic attack, whatever and she's like listen, at the end of the day, have you ever felt a panic attack? Have you ever experienced something where the worst thing you felt and experienced wasn't just really shitty, just really, just really poor feelings? Have you ever has the thing you've been panicked about ever actually happened? Right, right, so that's the thing.
Speaker 3:So what is the worst case scenario? The worst case scenario is that you feel horrible, you feel awful and you're not going to die from it. So, really, what are you left with? You're left with feeling awful. You know how to feel awful. You've done that before. You have a whole track record of feeling awful. You've done that before. Like, there's the you. You have a whole track record of feeling awful and making it through it anyways. Maybe you didn't, maybe it wasn't you know the best time, but the point is, um, it really goes back to the phrase of like don't ask for the situation to change, but demand that you become greater.
Speaker 3:Um, giving yourself the ability, giving yourself the benefit of the doubt to say, giving yourself the ability, giving yourself the benefit of the doubt to say I'm jumping into this and I'm sitting in it, without perhaps having the evidence that you could or without. Perhaps you know, perhaps your brain is saying one thing, screaming at you not to, but you go and decide to do it anyways, because you know it's getting closer to where you want to go. It creates, slowly but surely, over time, it creates evidence for yourself that not only can you do that thing, but you can also do that other things that you maybe thought you couldn't do, which is why it's really great to start small, because your brain can't tell the difference between you know, if I'm, if I'm sitting here looking at this thing of gum and I'm like it's sitting on my desk for whatever reason, I don't think I can pick it up Like, if I actually have that belief. I don't think I can pick it up Like if I actually have that belief. I don't think I can pick it up and then I go pick it up.
Speaker 3:Your brain can't tell the difference between that and overcoming and sitting in horrible feelings when you're on the subway about to vomit. So start with the very tiny things. Stay consistent with your health routine. Do something when you promise yourself that you would Engage on social like content creators. Engage on social media for 30 minutes a day, even if you don't want to like. Start with the small things.
Speaker 2:That builds the muscle in your brain to actually then go and do the big things. And I love the fact you're saying okay, I'm in a panic attack, what's the worst going to happen? I'm going to feel bad. I can feel bad, it's okay, I'm not going to die. You know, people aren't going to hate me forever. I'm not going to die. People aren't going to hate me forever. I'm not going to hate myself forever. I'm going to feel bad. I can do that. And it seems to me that that's a way of taking control right there, because it seemed to me and correct me if I'm wrong that the panic attack you're feeling just out of control, the situation is, your adaptivity to it is whatever, but now you're taking control.
Speaker 3:Wait, I can do this, I can deal with this yes, that the context that adds that is that you know, during moments of heightened, just emotional instability whether, again, whether it's just something small that you're worried about or a full-blown panic attack what people will try and do is they will try and control the whole situation, the full bubble, where they're at, where they're, who they're around, what other people are doing, what other people are saying, what other people are thinking. They try and control everything. Can you control everything, even in the best of moments? No, no, control yourself, though. You can control. You can control what is within you, and so it's like reframing yourself instead, instead of focus, instead of giving yourself the ability, the permission to focus on everything else. It's like no, reframe it, refocus it within yourself, because that you can actually influence.
Speaker 2:And I think that's fantastic, not just for the people who have panic attacks, but for all of us, because at one point or another, we all feel, I'll say, panicked, but at least you know, greatly concerned.
Speaker 2:We feel like maybe things are going to crap or, you know, bad things are happening around us, bad things are happening to us, that kind of thing that we can't control. But we can go okay, instead of trying to do that which I can't, I can control me, I can control my reaction to it and therefore my actions, and I am going to get through this because I've controlled the central core of everything, which is me Okay, fantastic. So how do you yourself, at this point and you mentioned you've gone through a lot of therapy, you've done a lot of research on your own and you've come up with a lot of things how do you keep yourself these days from and you mentioned it's day-to-day from going back into that? What is your process? Because now we know the background, we know what you do when it's happening. Now let's go to the next step, which is how do you keep it from happening, how do you recognize it? And then, what do you do about it?
Speaker 3:So this is another concept that I lean on a lot, again, actually from Leila Hermosi. A lot of my concepts are taken or inspired by Lela Hermosi. She's quite literally my favorite, quite my favorite human on the planet. It is it is no, it is no exaggeration to say that in in in multiple ways that woman has changed my life, and if I ever got the opportunity, I say it wherever I go, cause I'm like you know what, I don't know who's going to hear what. If I ever got the opportunity to work for acquisitioncom, I will give up everything I'm doing in a heartbeat and jump over there.
Speaker 2:So for which say it again, which place whichcom acquisitioncom? It's, it's their company, okay, okay. Put it out there, buddy, I've got a couple of listeners and I've got a couple of high level listeners, so you never know.
Speaker 3:I love it. I love it. No, it's a. It's. It's a holding company. They do about five I think they're up to about 500, 600 million a year. It's run by two of the most amazing humans I've ever seen. So Layla Hamosi.
Speaker 3:She talks a lot about, she demystifies a lot of this stuff with specifically around entrepreneurship, mindset, just personal excellence, et cetera. So framework that she shared, that I've kind of adapted into this, is it's concept of returning to baseline. So when at the very, at the very kind of beginning of, let's say, a, you know, a journey to better yourself, personal excellence, there might be something that somebody says or does that really makes you mad or really makes you feel a certain way, or whatever. You have a very strong emotional reaction to it. You will fly off of baseline. You know baseline just being.
Speaker 3:You know how you're kind of living and acting on a normal day, every day. You will fly off of baseline. You're, you know baseline, just being. You know how you're kind of living and acting on a normal day, every day. You will fly off of baseline. You're, you know you go way off the chart, right, let's say it takes you a day, a week, a month, whoever you know, who knows, based on the situation, to return to baseline. So to answer your question of what I do now, is I focus on that a lot. I focus on I'm not trying to make myself not fly off of baseline, I'm working on my ability to return to baseline quicker and quicker and quicker.
Speaker 2:Love it, love it. In fact, say it again and again. Listeners, I know I do this, but I want to make sure you're catching these nuggets that are in here. I want to make sure they don't just pass you by because you got distracted driving or whatever. Bradley, say that one again for me you got distracted driving, or?
Speaker 3:whatever Bradley say, that one again for me. So what I'm? What I'm focusing on now and I think it's it's beneficial for anybody at any at any stage of journey. But what I'm focusing on now as, as somebody who you know I've been in therapy for for several years, I still go to therapy once every other week, highly recommend it for everyone out there, but I also take a lot of time and effort in advocating for my own mental health and for, you know, for those around me.
Speaker 3:The one of the biggest things that I will say for maintaining and adapting a solid, I think, base and foundation for yourself is, instead of trying to avoid the situation in which you fly off the handle, in which you have the strong emotional response, have the strong emotional response, but every time you do return to baseline 1% faster, get more skilled at letting it be there and then returning to baseline, because you can't control when you will fly off the handle, but you can control how quickly you return to essentially what it is is you can't control how quickly you accept what happens.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's what. That's what I'm catching from that that you're you're not hating yourself for reacting that way, it's not. Oh my God, I'm a horrible person. It happened again exasperation and everything else. You're like, okay, this is cool, this is all right, this happens and it's part of me and I love me, it's all right.
Speaker 2:But I can now take back control more quickly, come back to that centered level more quickly, and it's all okay, because now, instead of being no power again it's kind of back to that you are taking power back. You are taking control back little by little, by little by little, and you can do just like building any muscle, going back to your workout comparisons, you know, just like building any muscle, you're building the muscle to come back more quickly, more quickly. It makes perfect sense to me and I think that's something that people can understand and that they can do. What else, as we're getting near the end of our time here, what else would you like to share with people? As far as, okay, they've had these challenges and now they understand a little bit better how to, how to deal with them and how to work with that. What else would you like to share with them before we're out of time here.
Speaker 3:The, the, the concepts that it's. It's rather new. It's rather new concept that that I've like vocalized but I feel like I've been in one way or another kind of lived it for for a long time, but it's, it's just one of those things that, like I heard personally that I'm like oh, wow. That like sums up my existence, existence, experience, which is pain is required, but suffering is not. I think I think so much about this and the, the kind of the, the tactical way that I will, that I think about that then.
Speaker 2:And you know I'm going to interrupt you again, so you can repeat that again. That's a good one, baby.
Speaker 3:Pain is required, but suffering is not.
Speaker 2:Love it.
Speaker 3:So another way to put this is like if you do hard things off, then everything becomes easy. So the analogy that I like to think about is that's like you know, like a hot and cold shower. So if you get into a hot shower, what happens? After a couple of minutes the temperature becomes kind of that lukewarm thing and you maybe even get a little bit cold, and then you have to go back and you have to turn on even more hot water to get yourself to feeling the way you were before, and then the process repeats itself. So that's like doing easy things right. It's kind of it's dopamine. You need more of it for the things that keep being easy.
Speaker 3:But if you do hard things, if you jump in the cold shower, what happens? Your body actually acclimates to it. Is it comfortable at the beginning or even comfortable midway through? No, but your body acclimates to it and without changing the temperature, without changing the inputs and the situation around you, it actually becomes easier.
Speaker 3:So I think doing hard things often will, and just training your brain to look at look at hard things as opportunities, not roadblocks, and it's like getting getting yourself to the point where you can say, oh, again back to the curiosity thing, I haven't done that before. I wonder what that's going to be like. Or oh, I know that I've ran from that before. Or oh, I, I know that that's going to be really uncomfortable at first. But I wonder what's, on the other side, training your brain to look at those things and not not to to just run away, not to let fight or flight kick up, but to say I actually want to go make the proof that I can do that and I'm doing in terms of the way we talked about it's it's the hard things become easier.
Speaker 2:The hard things become easier.
Speaker 3:And the and the pain of the. You know, the pain of the moment is just simply that, and but it's, it's that suffering that we inflict on ourselves because we let the pain have a story. That's what becomes optional.
Speaker 2:That's what becomes a shorter and shorter story, I think every time I love it. I love it. Well, we are indeed out of time, but, bradley, this has been fantastic information, very enlightening for a lot of us, for everybody who's going through the challenges, which is truly everybody it just depends on what level and then for everybody else to understand, when we see people going through these things, what's happening and how we can help them and how they can help themselves. So, for everybody listening, I think you've got a lot of tools here today which is what I always want with this podcast for when you're going through the challenges, you're feeling those emotions, what you can do about it, that they're okay, the way that you work with them is up to you. Work with them, become stronger, doing it, use the craft method that Bradley talked about and put all of this together and you, indeed, can have your own Comeback Chronicle.
Speaker 1:So that's it for today's episode of the Comeback Chronicles. Head on over to Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen, and subscribe to the show. If you're ready to get over your fears, self-doubts and past failures and break through your comfort zone to reach the pinnacle of success in every area of your life, head over to terrielfawesomecom to pick up your free gifts and so much more. We'll see you next week on the Comeback Chronicles podcast.