Episode 29 - Triggered

Frustration. Annoyance. That one person who knows how to press your buttons. In this episode, Jeuse Kastoan explores what it means to be triggered—and how to flip that energy into fuel. When distractions, drama, and doubters come for your peace, how do you stay locked in on your purpose? This one’s for the grinders who know they can’t let reactions dictate direction.

🎧 “You don’t owe your energy to chaos. You owe it to your goals.”

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

So you ever have this moment where something happens and it brings instant anxiety or anger, just uh any unsavory feeling that makes you uncomfortable. You know, you know, that's what I would say is, you know, most people say that's when you're triggered. And throughout life, there's gonna be various moments where you're triggered. So in dealing with these things, you gotta learn how to focus. First off, whatever happened, things happen in general. You can't predict everything, you can't control everything. All you can do is control what you do. Um, this episode is called Trigger, and I'll just tell you about different ways it can happen and different ways to deal with it. For me myself, um, do I get triggered? Of course, everybody gets triggered. Um But even then, I think very deeply about a lot of things, so a lot of things kind of just roll off my shoulder. I don't really get super upset about it. When I was younger, I will say this. When I was younger, I was a little more uh I forgot the word. Um I got annoyed easily. So um I was uh annoyed about not everything, but just like small inconveniences would annoy me. Small inconveniences be bothered. Um trying to do things right if someone did something wrong, made a mistake, that would annoy me. Uh all those things when I was younger, I would get triggered very easily. And uh this is back in a time where you know I was very sarcastic. Uh I was also very tired because I was going to school full-time, I was working full-time, and I also had a part-time job. So, you know, I didn't get a lot of rest. And in turn, with me not getting a lot of rest, I really didn't give a fuck about much other than just working and going to school. So everything else to me was like extra, and it was like just something I felt if I dealing with, I'm just not dealing with it. Plain simple. But to like those that I was close to or those that I interacted with often, I was really a sarcastic asshole. Thing is, I was a sarcastic asshole, but I was also funny. So it's like, even though I was being sarcastic and being a dick, I was funny, so you know, people for the most part let it slide. Um when I look back at it now, I kind of cringe on good about it because to me, I really feel that's a way to really treat people, nor do I feel like it's very nice to treat people that way. So, you know, I can't say it's something I'm necessarily proud of. It's uh something that I work really hard to get out the habit of and try to get better. When dealing with situations when you're getting triggered, you gotta realize what things actually trigger you and why are they triggering you. Um when I try to think about why things are triggering me, I nowadays, because before when I was younger, I didn't really think too much about why something triggered me, I would just be triggered and react to it. See whatever just came off the top of my head. Me being older, I think more deeply and think, why is this triggering me, or why does this bother me? And usually when I think of what the source is and why it's actually bothering me, I deal with the root problem, the root cause, and you know, I move forward from there and be better about it. Now, with that being said, nowadays I don't really get triggered as often. Um I laugh more than anything if something bothers me because it's like, oh, well, that's stupid. Whatever. And I just keep on moving. But um, in regards to being triggered, it's only because I've evolved to the point to where now I just realize all the small minuscule extra shit that happens, all the inconveniences, somebody just happens to hit the back of your car, or someone turns into your car, or you're staying in line and someone's taking 10 minutes to make an order. Like stuff like that is to me, it's all small. It doesn't really matter. It's not really a big deal. You don't know what people are going through. You don't know what their lives are like, you don't know what the situation is. So there could be reasons why these things are happening, it could be reasons why people are reacting like they're reacting. So why Joe didn't get mad? Just let them have a moment. And you want someone to let you have your moment and deal with whatever you're dealing with, and then just move forward.

SPEAKER_01 5:12

You know, wait your turn. What's the rush?

SPEAKER_00 5:17

You're gonna get to where you need to go. You know, it's uh I'm talking about driving a lot. It's just like driving. It's like people cut you off at speed on the fucking freeway just to get to wherever they're gonna go, and then when you get to the light, they're literally right there in front of you. It's like, what was the point of you doing all that extra shit? You're right here with me. Like, what's the purpose? Really, what's the purpose? There's no point. So when you think of it in that way, it's like you gotta learn patience and you gotta learn grace. Give people patience and grace. You give people patience and grace, and you learn that it makes dealing with things a lot easier. But you're not gonna get mad about them as you used to. Because you're thinking more deeper into the situation and what possibly could have caused it instead of just reacting and being like, oh, this is annoying and inconvenient. Like it's just no, this is happening. But why is this happening? What happened? They could be going through this, they could be going through that, which could trigger them acting in this way and potentially doing this thing that is either possibly going to annoy you or possibly slow you down. But in the end, you just uh let them have the grace and let them have that moment, and then you move forward. And just in regards to like slowing down in general, if you want to alleviate any potential stress or any issues dealing with time or getting somewhere in general, you gotta plan ahead. You literally gotta plan ahead. I haven't spoken about this in a while, but I got a new job. So, this new job, if there's traffic, I'm gonna be on the road for two hours. So, what would I look like getting mad at somebody cutting me off or driving a stone in front of me on the road, and I left like an hour 15, an hour and a half uh before I'm supposed to be at work when I know that traffic could potentially lead up to two hours. Like, how is that their fault?

SPEAKER_01 7:32

How is that their fault? It's not. It's not their fault.

SPEAKER_00 7:41

It would literally be my fault because I knew what time I needed to be there. I knew the time that it would take to get there, and I still chose to leave later than when I was supposed to. I was supposed to leave two hours earlier. I decided to leave an hour and a half later. Now that's why I'm late to work 15 minutes.

SPEAKER_01 8:04

Plan something. You don't want to deal with things like that.

SPEAKER_00 8:08

Plan ahead. Make sure you make time for any inconvenience or thing that can potentially happen to slow you down from wherever you're trying to go. And it's not just with driving, it's it's with life. You want to prepare and prep for everything so you don't get flustered and you don't get annoyed when things don't go your way. Because everything's not gonna always go your way. Everything doesn't revolve around you. To think everything revolves around you would be narcissistic. And we don't strive to be narcissistic, we strive to be empathetic. That's my wife would say.

SPEAKER_01 8:55

That's what we want to do. So in that, you gotta learn to be patient.

SPEAKER_00 9:02

Learn to be patient with others. Everyone isn't on your time. Everyone's time is important, not just yours. So when it comes to being triggered, you don't wanna sit there and let a situation get you out of your spot just because of that. And then, you know, that's not even taken into account. In some cases, it's not a grace situation or a patient situation. It could be people actually doing things to annoy you. That's a thing.

SPEAKER_01 9:35

People could be going out their way to inconvenience you and annoy you. And what are you gonna do about that? I guess it depends on your setting, right?

SPEAKER_00 9:47

It depends on where you're at, it depends on uh the situation. Right? It depends on who you're dealing with, it depends on where you're at. So that's what I'm assuming. And in most cases, if you want to do it like that, then yes, you can say in certain cases, if you see someone testing you or trying you, then you know, you feel like you gotta deal with it and handle them, which you know is fine to each your own. But what are you gonna do when you're in school? What are you gonna do when you're at work? You're gonna jeopardize uh losing your paycheck and taking care of your family just because someone's trying to annoy you? Is that more important, showing them that you're not to be fucked with than putting food on the table? Is that more important? A lot of things where you're dealing with stuff, you gotta remember that you know you don't want to have a traumatic event. So to prevent that traumatic event, or at least to lower the percentages, at some point you'll have to have an ego death. My wife talks about that a lot, the ego death. That ego you have, that person in your hair that's like, I'm not to be fucked with. That person that's like, I will be respected. You're not gonna do this to me, you're not gonna do that, and I'll stand 10 toes no matter where I'm at, no matter what the situation I'm gonna do. The world is complicated. You can't just do that. The world is very complicated. Yes, you can do that, but there are consequences. Say you want to handle them because they disrespect you, or they're uh going out their way to piss you off.

SPEAKER_01 11:24

Say you get physical. So you can go to jail. You can definitely go to jail.

SPEAKER_00 11:32

You say y'all don't care about going to jail. That's fine. It's gonna be on your record. And then me trying to find a job, or if you have a job and they find out because you miss work, because you're in jail. It's gonna hurt. It's gonna hit you. Or you say you're where you're at work. Okay, you're at work. You wanna deal with it that way. You still potentially can go to jail.

SPEAKER_01 11:53

But on top of that, you're probably gonna lose your job.

SPEAKER_00 11:57

You're not gonna keep someone that they feel is a threat to everybody. You're gonna lose your job. Then what you're gonna do? So you can say you can find another one, but what if it's a good paying job? You're gonna find a lower paying job compared to what you got now, just because you wanna sit there and crash out? Like, is that what you're gonna do? Is that the best move? It's not. You don't wanna do that. That wouldn't make any sense. You got things you gotta worry about, you got things you gotta take care of. You can't let people get you out your spot, you can't let people put you off your pivot. People are gonna do things to annoy you.

SPEAKER_01 12:28

I've dealt with this pretty much my whole life.

SPEAKER_00 12:34

I work somewhere, I start to excel, people in NOAA notice that I start to excel. And if I work with these people and we're competing for the same jobs or the same uh, you know, I don't want to say accolades, but like I guess you would say promotions or something like that. We're competing for the same thing. People realize they can't outwork me, so they do other things to try to get under my skin. They'll try to annoy me on purpose.

SPEAKER_01 13:00

And in the end, what happens? I don't fall for it. I move accordingly, let them do whatever they do, let them slender my name. I'm still outworking them. People can talk all they want, but the proof is literally in the results.

SPEAKER_00 13:21

The proof is in the efficiency, the proof is in the work that you put in. So if someone can literally talk shit about you all the fucking time. Talk down on you all the time, while you're at work, while you're at school, no matter where you're at. If someone's talking shit to you all the fucking time and they're a fucking C student and you got straight A's, why the fuck does their opinion matter? Their opinion's not gonna affect you because then you're still doing your thing and you're still handing business. They can try to knock you off your spot and bring you down to where they are. Change your focus. Make you miss a few assignments by stressing you out. And then after that, what? You're no longer an A student, you're a B student. Or you could be at work, excelling, doing your thing. They try to undermine you, they're trying to set traps, trying to make you mess up, but you know the rules. You know what you're supposed to do, you know what you're not supposed to do. You slack one second, want to make things easier for yourself because you don't want to do all the work because it's gonna be more taxing than the easier route. People find out you get in trouble, you get reprimanded. You're no longer up for that promotion because you fail for whatever trap they set. And that's because you're tired worrying about what they're doing.

SPEAKER_01 14:44

Doesn't matter what they're fucking doing. Who cares?

SPEAKER_00 14:48

You focus on what you're doing, you block that out. You let them win. Because in this world, which in some ways I see it as a game. It's not a game, obviously. But in certain things there's politics, and in politics there's game. And in my eyes, when there's politics, there's a game to it. Because there's a system. And in order for you to get your way, you can't just force your way into it. You have to be smart about it and handle it accordingly, because it's not just a straightforward, I'm gonna work hard and I'm gonna get this promotion. It's not, it's never that straightforward. If someone's trying to undermine you, you let them win those games where they're talking down on you, when they're talking trash to you, when they're talking about you bad to others. Don't even respond. Don't say shit to them. Oh, because they're trying to kill your reputation? Who cares? They're trying to kill your reputation, but guess what? When everything's said and done and the work is compiled, whose work looks better? Yours or theirs? More than likely it's theirs because they're trying to overcompensate. They can't compensate work-wise because you're outworking them, so they have to do other things to try to level up with you.

SPEAKER_01 16:06

And in the end, all you have to do is not react. That's all you have to do.

SPEAKER_00 16:15

It's not react, keep doing your work, and make sure you do everything efficiently. I've done that everywhere I've gone. And everywhere I've gone, I've had someone talk negative about me to make me look bad to management and everybody. Just so I didn't look good because work-wise, I was doing well. When I worked at Best Buy, I was number one in sales. Legit number one in the district. I was number one in the district for three months, and I got promoted after one month. And after three months, I was still number one in sales, even though I had no sales because the position I was in didn't involve sales. I was still number one. No one caught up to me. It literally took them more than a few months to catch up to the numbers that I had. And that's because I just focused on work. I was focused on being good at my job. I focused on being better. And literally there was another employee that would talk down to me. Not talk down to me, but he would go to other people and go to management and talk bad about me and saying I'm doing this and I'm doing that. But he was doing that because he wanted to be lead. And his numbers weren't gonna put him in a position to be a lead. He was good at his job, but he just wasn't as good as I was.

SPEAKER_01 17:40

When I was in the military, I worked hard. I volunteered all the time.

SPEAKER_00 17:48

When it came to my qualifications, I knew that in order for me to be considered for the highest eval in my group, I had to get on par with everyone that I was working with. And not just get on par with them, but I had to blow past them. But the thing is, the typical path that people take is they take their time and they get their qualifications, you know, over time. They move slower. They don't really, they're not just going in just trying to like, let me get this work done. They're just like, I'm a coast, I'm a chill, because it's not something you have to get done immediately. I can't remember how long you have. I think you have like a year or two years to do it or something like that. I can't remember how long you have, but you don't have to get it done immediately. But you gotta remember that the evals get done every year. So when they compare evals, if you don't have certain qualities that someone else has, automatically you're not gonna be considered for the top eval. So what do I do? You have the workday, everyone's working. And then you have watches, which is basically people's jobs after they work their regular job during the day in the military. So then in order to get these qualifications, you got to get trained on these watches. And then when you do these watches, you got this little packet of paper. They sign off that they trained you, and you got to get three people to sign it off on the whole thing that they trained you on everything, then you turn it in. But you can't do it during the work day because people have work to do. They're literally working on the ship. They can't train you right now. They have other stuff they have to do. But on the off time, when everyone's going home at 10, 11 o'clock at night, eight o'clock at night, they don't have work going on. They're just standing and watch, guarding everything. So at that point, that's when you can go and get your training done. So what'd I do?

SPEAKER_01 19:41

I did what I had to. I was asleep.

SPEAKER_00 19:45

Once I got off of work, wake up at 8, 9 o'clock, because these trains weren't just like quick five, 10-minute trainings. They literally take 30 minutes to an hour. So I'll literally go to sleep, wake up after like three, four hours, go right to the ship and go training. So I literally knocked out all my calls within a few months because I constantly did that. I go to work in the morning at 8 a.m. We get let out at 1600. I go to sleep for a couple hours, go back to the ship at 8, 9, 10 o'clock, and do the trainings, getting all of them signed off. And then at that point, when it came the eval time, I had all the qualifications that people that have been there for like two, three years had. So at that point, it's no longer a situation where they're uh automatically gonna get a higher eval to me because they've been there longer. You can't do that at that point because you have to consider me, because I literally had the same calls they got and I did in a faster time. And then on top of that, you add that I'm volunteering and I'm helping people out. And I'm spending my hours doing that instead of going out and drinking all the time, which I'm not saying I didn't do it at all. I think everybody did for the most part, but I didn't do it every day. Some days were work days. I made sure I work and then I go and volunteer because I found it better to spend my time helping others than you know just sitting in my barracks or going out to the haunch and drinking all the time. I literally decided, no, I'm just gonna go work and I'm gonna go help people and do that. It'll be good for my eval. And then plus it's something I could do that'll be helpful to others while I'm here in Japan. So that's what I did. So then you have people that's been there two, three years. I've been there only for a year, but my eval at the end of uh at the end of the year is higher than theirs. And I'm getting promoted faster. And why? That's because I took the time to focus on working. Now, of course, with me telling this, there is another part to it. Like I said, this is about being triggered. There were times. Where people basically took my information and basically submitted things that I didn't actually set up myself. Like, you know, the security. You have your cat card. You take your cat card whenever you leave the computer because you don't want anyone to have access to your stuff. I got lazy and I would leave my cat card sometimes in my computer. People would send emails on my account. People would sit there and send in files that I wasn't trying to send to important, you know, sites. Like they would they would do that. And who's gonna get in trouble for it? It's gonna be me because they can't prove that someone else did it. Not to mention, why the hell did I leave my cat card in in the first place so someone had the opportunity to do that? Like why? So in the end, people were doing stuff to irritate me and doing stuff to make me look bad. And in the end, what happened? It didn't matter. I still got promoted faster, I still got paid faster, I still was pretty much uh excelling.

SPEAKER_01 23:13

Like I was excelling.

SPEAKER_00 23:16

Even with all of them doing that, they were going lie on me to my uh LPOs or my supervisors, those who aren't military. They were gonna lie on me. And I knew they were gonna lie on me.

SPEAKER_01 23:31

Because they tell me so-and-so said this.

SPEAKER_00 23:35

And then in the end, but it all amounts to it didn't stop anything, it didn't stop my momentum. I still was winning rewards, I was still getting promoted faster.

SPEAKER_01 23:46

It didn't stop anything.

SPEAKER_00 23:50

I'm literally saying this because I'm just saying, with that, focusing on what others are doing instead of focusing on your goal and what you need to do so you can succeed is always gonna hinder you and it's always gonna mess you up. If you just stay focused on whatever you're doing and whatever you're trying to do to get better at, you'll be fine. Everything will work itself out. Because someone can talk bad about you all they want if they don't have the work ethic that you have. And it's this isn't a fake uh, oh, I work harder than them, I I do everything, and just still consider. I mean, but do you? Are you having sleepless nights? Are you spending extra time to learn everything? Are you spending your off time doing other projects, helping others in the organization? Like if someone coming to you and saying, Hey, I work in this department, I know you don't work here, but I need help with this. Are you able to help me with this and get this done? And are you getting that experience by doing that? And helping doing all the extra stuff that no one else wants to do? Are you doing that? Like, are you really doing all that extra stuff that people really don't want to do and tend to not do? Or are you just doing the regular stuff but complaining about them getting a recognition even though you're not putting in the work to get that recognition? If that's what you're going for. Like, are you really doing it? When I say you need to focus on whatever you need to do so you can get to your goal, I mean you need to focus solely on doing what you need to do to make sure your team is good and that you reach your goal by staying focused on whatever it is that you need to learn and master to attain whatever goal you wanted. You do whatever you have to do. You do the extra work. You spend the extra time doing things you don't feel like doing. You spend the time doing things that you don't like doing because it needs to be done and you need to learn. So if someone ever has a question, they don't have to go to a supervisor. They can go and ask you about it and then they can learn. And then the supervisor feels good about you actually knowing all this stuff because then they know they can trust you to get people to do the right thing instead of having everyone come to them. Make their job easier. Are you doing those things? If you're not doing those things, you can't complain about somebody getting recognition when you're not even putting in the work that they're putting in just to get that recognition. And if y'all both are doing the same thing and they happen to get the recognition, you can complain if you want. But if you had spent the time to actually put in the extra work to do well and be seen and stand out, then you wouldn't even be having this conversation. You need to make sure you hold yourself accountable and be real with yourself and say, do I really want this promotion? Do I really want to do the extra work? Do I really want to do the extra things that people normally don't want to do? Do I really want to put myself out there and learn everything so people have to come to me to know how to do it? Because if you don't want to do all that, then you don't really want that promotion. You just want to complain about it because someone else got it. If you really want it, it's not gonna matter what they're doing. It's not gonna matter what anyone else is doing. Because you're gonna know that you're doing everything you can to make sure that you learn and master whatever you need to so you can reach whatever goal you have. It's kind of shifted from triggered, but it all coincides. Because in the end, when you want to do something, there's gonna be people that want to trigger you. There's gonna be people that want to do something to get you off of your pivot, get you off of your path, make a little friction, make it uncomfortable. You make it uncomfortable, that's fine. That's good. You don't grow from being comfortable, you grow from being uncomfortable. So let them do it. In the end, it's not gonna stop you. That's gonna stop you from doing whatever you're trying to do. You're still gonna reach your goal because you're focused on what you need to do to make that goal happen. You're not worried about others, you're just focused on a goal. That's it. In the end, that's all you need to focus on. What am I trying to do? Where am I trying to go? Where am I headed? What do I need to get there?

SPEAKER_01 28:01

There's a system in everything. There's a system in everything.

SPEAKER_00 28:09

And what you need to do is learn the system and learn what you need to focus on and what you need to get good at.

SPEAKER_01 28:18

That way you can reach whatever peak you're going for. This is called Trigger. I am Juice Castone. Have a good day.