Stress Smarts with Colonel Deb
Mentally Tough Women aren’t born—they’re built. Together, let's Rise Stronger, Shine Bright, and Lead with Heart— in the moments that matter most!
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Welcome to Stress Smarts with Colonel Deb, where mental toughness meets heart. Each week we’ll explore powerful tools, fresh perspectives, and quick resets to help you rise stronger, shine brighter, and lead with heart—especially in the moments that matter most.
These episodes are adapted from my live Facebook series, Let’s Talk About…, where I share real tools for bouncing back stronger. You can also find the video versions on my Stress Intelligence YouTube channel (YouTube.com/@StressIntelligence).
As a West Point graduate, combat commander, and founder of Mentally Tough Women, I’ve spent decades leading through the toughest situations life can throw at us. But what makes this podcast different isn’t just my experience—it’s the depth, care, and realness that others have felt from me for years. Soldiers I once led still tell me they remember my tears of relief after welcoming them back from a mission where their safety was at risk, and the way I never asked them to do what I wouldn’t do myself.
That’s why people tune in. Because here, you won’t just get strategies—you’ll get them from someone who’s lived them, led with heart under fire, and knows how to help you turn stress into your strongest ally.
Stress Smarts with Colonel Deb
The Aloha Adventures With Colonel Deb – How Pono and Kuleana Help You Live With Aloha
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Aloha Friends!
In Episode 1 of The Aloha Adventures with Colonel Deb, I begin exploring the deeper meaning behind my book:
Why Is Pono Not Pono Today?
From my home in Hilo, Hawai‘i, I introduce three powerful Hawaiian concepts:
• Aloha – living with love
• Pono – being in balance
• Kuleana – taking responsibility and action
Together, they form a simple yet powerful way of understanding how we return to our best when life feels off balance.
This podcast episode is based on my Stress Intelligence YouTube series
The Aloha Adventures: Life Lessons From Pono and Kuleana
[https://www.youtube.com/@StressIntelligence/playlists]
where I share the story behind the book along with the beauty and spirit of Hilo.
This episode sets the foundation for the journey ahead.
📖 If you'd like to follow along with my book, you can obtain a copy here:
[https://www.amazon.com/dp/0991483049/]
✅ Subscribe to the Stress Smarts Podcast for weekly tools that help you:
- Handle stress without breaking down
- Reset quickly after overwhelm
- Lead yourself and others with clarity, confidence, and care
🌐 Explore more at MentallyToughWomen.com
For Stress Intelligence™ tools, courses, and coaching for purpose-driven women ready to lead and thrive.
📺 Watch video versions on my Stress Intelligence YouTube channel (www.YouTube.com/@StressIntelligence)
🔗 Connect on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/MentallyToughWomen
Aloha. Welcome to my new adventures, Kuleana and Pono Adventures. I said I was going to talk about the book and give you some explanation of things around that are in Hilo. First I'm going to be talking about my home. And then I'm going to talk a little bit about this book. Why is Pono not Pono today? What you can see in front of you is our lemon tree. These are Meyer's lemons and they grow all year except for if we have a dry season. But they come off. I mean they're huge. Some are small, but most of them are huge. This one fell off today. I'm going to put that down. But this lemon tree. Normally it wouldn't be much story to tell, except that it fruits since we've been here. We arrived in 2012. I really have done nothing to fertilize it. We had barrels originally around these trees. I didn't plant these trees. They were here when we arrived. The barrels, over time, they disintegrate. So I put these stones here, and that seemed to work great until we had a visitors. You guess what the visitors were, and then I'll tell you in the comments. It was pretty exciting. We had some visitors and it looked like a bomb had exploded here or a wrecking ball. And the stones were everywhere, and the tree wasn't eaten. The bush wasn't eaten, but it did not have any dirt around it. So we had to go back and put the dirt around and put the stones back around. So what do you think they were? I wanted to talk about this book. Let's go ahead into that. Why is Pono not Pono today? When you get the book, what's not obvious, and I didn't write this in here, over time I realized I highlighted three Hawaiian words that are so important to thinking about how to bring out our best. Do you know what those three Hawaiian words are? Well, the first one is aloha, the spirit of aloha. The spirit of aloha is something that when you look at it, the Hawaiian words are so rich in meaning. It can be many situations, but it is all about living with love. Living with love and living at our best. And this is what we can aspire to and want to live and what the islands had been known for. Many people are trying to keep the spirit of aloha alive and well instead of going negative. Think of that as the live aloha triad. So that's the first one that I want you to think about. Aloha and the many beautiful meanings it has. The other two are embedded into the characters where I gave the characters very specific names. And the book, why is Pono not Pono today? P-O-N-O is another rich word that can describe our things in balance or things in a good place, whether it's personally or the yard. When my visitors came, it wasn't Pono anymore. The environment wasn't Pono because they had disturbed the root system and I needed to take quick action. It's like a thermometer, it's like an assessment. It's saying, are we good today? In the book, you see an upset bull on the cover, and that is why is Pono not Pono today? Meaning, why is he not good today? And then that's a word, like I said, many, many different characterizations like the Aloha way. You know when you're Pono and when you're not. You can feel it. It's your feelings. Are they negative feelings or are they positive feelings? So it's really talking about if you're Pono, you have the positive feelings, the environment is healthy, the decisions being made are good ones, and people are watching out and using kindness and living the aloha spirit. Then the other character of the book represents another very important word. Now Pono is often a proper name as well as a name to describe a situation or health. Kuleana is the name of this little girl, and this little girl, there's a reason why she's very smart, she's very kind, compassionate, she's capable, and what she does is she sees her friend Pono not in a good way. And even though he tries to do some bad things to her, she just sees the pain that he's in and wants to help. And she takes action. So kuleana is normally not a proper name, but it is about taking proper action to help others, to set things and make sure they're pono again. You can see the triad where you have a spirit of aloha up top, and if you're gonna live aloha, you want to be pono, and if you're not pono, your kuleana kicks in. It's an action word, and it goes to help you be pono again. This story essentially talks you through a situation of how that can happen. How you can start off in a good place and then maybe not be Pono because of things that are going on in the world, things are going on in your household, at school, or some other place, it has a very negative effect on us. Kuleana brings us back to where we want to be at our best. We can live with the aloha spirit, which is our living aloha is just the highest level of being. I wish you all the best. Have a blessed day. In the comments, you can see where you can get this book to share this with little ones who get it right away, I'm happy to say. And then the families that can also live with the aloha spirit and understand what has to happen in order to get there. So this is Colonel Depp with my Pono and Kuleana adventures. Aloha.