The James Granstrom Podcast - Super Soul Model series
Have you been questioning how to live your dreams and enjoy greater happiness, health, and wellbeing? I'm James Granstrom, male model turned international speaker and wellbeing teacher. Join me every other week for new lessons, tips, and conversations on personal growth, health, healing and spirituality with my inspiring guests or straight talk from myself. I'm here to guide you to become your best self and enrich your life, so you can tune and tap into your own natural state of wellbeing.
The James Granstrom Podcast - Super Soul Model series
When Life Doesn't Go Your Way, DO this Instead
Ever feel like no matter how hard you try, nothing is flowing—and everything’s working against you? This episode is your roadmap for those moments. When life doesn't go your way, there's a powerful shift you can make—and it starts in your mind.
By the end of this conversation, you’ll know exactly how to interrupt negative thought loops, regulate tough emotions, and turn setbacks into breakthroughs. These are the tools high performers, mindset coaches, and everyday resilient people use to rewire their reality from the inside out.
Here’s what you’ll learn:
✅ How to stop spiraling when things go wrong
✅ The science of emotional regulation and nervous system resets
✅ Why resistance creates more struggle—and what to do instead
✅ The 30-Second Rule to interrupt fear, doubt, and negativity
✅ Tools like cold exposure, breathwork, and movement to shift your state fast
✅ The power of better questions—like “What if something beautiful comes from this?”
✅ Why relief (not perfection) is the feeling to aim for
Through real-life examples of loss, frustration, and turning points, we explore how emotion is the first signal of manifestation—and how to work with your feelings, not against them.
This is more than mindset. It’s about learning how to respond when life doesn’t go your way—and how that moment can become the beginning of something greater.
💬 Because when you change the questions you ask, you change the outcomes you get.
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The mind automatically wants to jump to a negative bias, and the reason being is because it's trying to control and keep you safe.
Speaker 1:But it's only when you can interrupt and break that pattern do you become the master of your mind, because you're either the master of your mind or you're the slave. And the key thing here in this episode that I'm trying to share with you is how to master that. Hi, I'm James and you're listening to the Super Soul Model Series. If you feel like the universe isn't playing ball with you right now, if you feel like the universe is kind of going against you and, no matter what you're doing, nothing's sticking or nothing's flowing and you don't know what's going on and you want to try and get out of this funk, I just want to let you know this is just energy, and in this, this episode, what I'm going to do is I'm going to share with you some actionable tools and steps so you can change your energy and get different feedback from life, because, in truth, life is always reflecting and mirroring back our internal states. When we feel good, we get good experiences in green lights, and when we don't feel great, we feel like we're up against it, hence red lights. So, in this episode, whether you are experiencing some real challenge right now and you're experiencing some real adversity, and perhaps you might be even at rock bottom, I've got something to share with you in order to turn that around. And if you're in another type of experience and going through challenge which may be not as severe, but you feel as though you've got frustration, irritation, disappointment, you know you're upset with people, something's going on with your works, maybe something's going on with your finances or your health, I want to share with you tools in which you can turn things around. And, in my case, when I had a very, very difficult experience which was me flying out to see my family, my mother and father, only to discover that day that my dad had passed away, I'm going to share with you some tools in which you can turn things around. So, when life isn't going your way and you're getting a feedback in the form of emotion that's very uncomfortable, that's coming in the body, this is what you need to do. Number one you need to understand, first and foremost, that the mind automatically wants to jump to a negative bias, and the reason being is because it's trying to control and keep you safe. And you might not think. If my mind is my friend, why would it do that? Because it takes real conscious effort to focus on the positive than it does to focus on the negative, and the mind automatically wants to go on a negative tailspin and take you with it. But it's only when you can interrupt and break that pattern do you become the master of your mind, because you're either the master of your mind or you're the slave. And the key thing here in this episode that I'm trying to share with you is how to master that mind so that you get to control where you want the trajectory of your thought and your thinking to go.
Speaker 1:Number two the other thing you need to be super mindful of is that when that adversity and that feeling's well up inside of your body, that may seem really uncomfortable, because you're either going through some type of irritation, frustration, anger, disappointment, whatever it may be. What you need to do is just accept that's the way you're feeling right now, rather than push it away, because if you can accept that feeling right now, it's going to dissipate. But if you try and push it away or you try and hide it through substance or alcohol or whatever, which is what I used to do. It just gets bigger and it stays in the background and becomes more and more uncomfortable every single day. So the key thing is to do is kind of welcome that feeling, even though it's really unpleasant, and then do this. Which is the most important thing you need to understand that everything is energy and when you have an uncomfortable feeling, that is energy in motion, which means the thought and the feeling are in motion, creating that emotion with inside of your body. So if it's disappointment or frustration or irritation, that's something that you thought about in motion, creating that feeling. And, on the higher end of the spectrum, when you feel great, you have thoughts and feelings that are now in motion, creating that good feeling, emotion. That's when you get the green lights of life.
Speaker 1:So when we're experiencing those red lights and those very challenging emotions that well up inside of your body, what I want you to do is feel like you have this actionable toolkit in your back pocket and I call it the 30 second rule. And the 30 second rule is this is you count to 30 backwards 30, 29, 28,. Because actually what you're doing when you're doing this very mundane, boring tool exercise is you're giving your mind focus to focus on something and it actually takes about 17 seconds to start changing the trajectory of your thought. And when you've got high level emotion that's uncomfortable sitting in your system, you need to change that emotion and you need to actually change the trajectory. It's a bit like a fast moving train can't go 80 miles one way and then suddenly stop and go 80 miles another way. It doesn't work like that. So in order to slow that process down, slow that energy down, slow that train of thinking down, we need to go to the mundane as counting from 30 to 1, really slowly, and if it means you need to do it longer, do it longer. I have on many occasions just counted, you know, a whole minute just to just slow that energy down. And once you do that, you recognize that feeling begins to dissipate inside the body. This gives you mastery over those emotions that well up when you least expect them and they're very, very uncomfortable.
Speaker 1:Now, just recently, something happened to me, very, very small, but nonetheless it made me think about this episode and think that most people just accept that that's the way it is. But it isn't the way it is. It's the way that you've been flowing your energy and I woke up on monday morning to have an appointment, only to discover that that appointment was cancelled, whilst I, when I nearly arrived at that appointment and what I discovered was instead of me automatically flowing irritation and frustration energy that someone hadn't kept their word. I decided to do this, and this next actionable tool is something that made me reframe this challenge completely differently, because, as I mentioned, the mind naturally wants to go into a negative bias. It naturally wants to think the worst of people, it naturally wants to make you separated from everybody else, but the fact of the matter is we live in a connected universe.
Speaker 1:We are all connected on a quantum field. We're all atoms and molecules, all connected to one another, and so when we're having our normal day, waking up, you've got your appointments, you've got your work, you've got your family, you've got the meals, you've got your gym that you might be going to, whatever your life may be, we have to remember we are all connected and we're all connected by energy, and this quantum soup is changing with all these superpositions of us feeling in different ways, because when we feel differently, we start to tap into different aspects of what we can attract into our life. So, when we feel less than good and what I call that red light feeling, we're only attracting events that won't make us feel good. We're attracting people that let us down. We're attracting experiences that feel less than great. If you're with me so far on the other side of this is all the beautiful stuff, but what I'm truly trying to maximize and pinpoint here in this episode is how for you to turn things around when you're feeling that red light energy Because it's easy to get feeling good and stay feeling good than it is to feel bad and not feel great and have loads of challenges and hit rock bottom and have the dark nights of the soul. But it's really our comeback that makes us feel powerful, because the contrasting experiences are actually setups in disguise. I wouldn't change any of the challenges that I've had in the last 15, 20 years for anything, because they've taught me how to come back time and time again. This gives us a feeling of real power.
Speaker 1:So just to conclude on this particular segment, you've got to make sure that you can own the feeling, even if it's unpleasant. Own it, let it sit with you. As the Navajo Indians say say let that anxiety sit at the table, let that fear sit at the table with you, because if you don't invite it, it will barge its way into your life over and over again. But if you make space for it, if you let it sit there, if you welcome it, it will eventually leave, because we always get more of what we try to push away, because in the universe, whatever you resist persists. So if you're trying to try to push away, because in the universe, whatever you resist persists, so if you're trying to resist and push away those unpleasant feelings, they're going to come back with greater noise. That's what I found in my experience. So welcome that feeling, whether you like it or not.
Speaker 1:Then, number two, one of the things you have to remember is the mind is seeking a negative bias. So when that mind of yours starts to go on that negative bias, just recognize that that's just trying to keep you safe. But then, number three, you have to master your mind and slow that energy and that emotion down. And the way you do that is by counting from one to 30. This allows your mind to focus on something completely different than what's going on. Just remember, you don't need to fix anything today. You just need to start to be in control of your mind when it starts to go on a tailspin, and the way you take ownership back of your mind when it starts to go on a tailspin is to take one bold move that soothes yourself, because when you begin to soothe yourself, you slow that energy and emotion right down from red light energy to a neutral territory. That's when you can start taking back off and getting into that green light territory again.
Speaker 1:So the next thing you need to do in order to change that state is you need to use your physical body and you need to use your mental discipline. And I'm going to just start with the physical, because if you're feeling very uncomfortable and that emotion feels very uncomfortable with you, what I noticed when I was experiencing death in my life and people I love, close to me had died, what I recognized is I needed to get back into the heart rather than being in the mind, thinking about the situation with grief or upset, and what I chose to do was I choose to go running every morning. So I went running for 20 minutes every single day. This made the physiology of my body, just made me get back in my body, and I felt greater capacity to deal with the things that were in front of me. So getting physical is really important. So for me, I recognize that running was great, but for you it might be jumping.
Speaker 1:A cold shower. You know, one minute of cold shower every morning can really release that funky energy, that unpleasant energy inside of your body. On many occasions I've had cold showers. I've actually then changed my clothes to just get in a different feeling state. I've gone for a run, I've jumped up and down, you know, I've gone skipping with a jump rope, all these things to change my energetic state, because when you change the way you feel, you change what you attract. So getting physical is the most important thing. And also you can do a breathing exercise, and one of the things that I've shared with my clients, and particularly that professional athletes do when they're really up against it in a very important moment, is a breathing technique called the double inhale and the long exhale, and it goes like this so what you're actually doing is forcing more oxygen into your lungs and the long exhale is expelling carbon dioxide and on a biological level, this is one of the best ways you can actually change your state if you're going in a frustration or irritation. I use it all the time in sport and I teach my clients to use it in sport as well, particularly when they're up against a very difficult moment, because this resets and recalibrates your nervous system just through the breath alone. But if you're having challenges going through the day and you're not doing sports the cold shower, perhaps a run, very brisk walk, getting out into nature think of all these things in which you can do to top up the energy, because when you change that emotional response in your body by physical activity, you feel a lot better.
Speaker 1:So once you've got physical, one of the things you need to do is get to the mental discipline which is asking yourself better questions, because when you ask a better question, you interrupt that negative bias that the mind often wants to take you on. And one of the things that I often ask myself is what's this trying to teach me, this setback, what's it actually setting me up for? I noticed when I had a challenge recently, when I was supposed to have an appointment and it was cancelled whilst I was nearly there, one thing that I did was to ask an empowering question, which was what if something good comes out of this Number one? And then I asked what if something beautiful happens today that's unexpected? And what if I can use this time wisely and use it for something even better? Now, this might be a frustration, but when you start to ask a what if? Question or a wouldn't it be nice? Question, even though you've been experiencing frustration and irritation and perhaps negativity, this changes the trajectory of your negative mind's bias. This actually puts the mind into curiosity and you start to lead the mind instead of being the slave to it from the negative bias. This is really powerful.
Speaker 1:The problem that most people have if they're having a very challenging life is they don't ask themselves good questions and because of that they're always a slave to the negative bias of the mind. But once you start to get control of the mind, you start to become free and you start to feel more powerful. You're not actually ever powerless. It's just that you probably haven't learned the tools yet how to come back and ask a better question. That's why Einstein said that if I have a problem, I will spend 55 minutes within an hour trying to ask and create what the correct question is, and then within five minutes I will know I'll have the answer. That's because Einstein intuitively and instinctively knew that when you ask a better question you always get the answer.
Speaker 1:So, just in conclusion to this, you might ask what's this trying to teach me? What if something good comes out of this? What if this setback is actually a setup in disguise? These are really empowering questions and if you ask yourself, what if something beautiful comes out of this, you will feel empowered and one of the powerful incantations you can always take away with yourself. When I've been challenged previously, I've often used this incantation, which is why am I safe and sound and why am I going to be all right? Because when you ask the why, you're going to the emotional aspect of the brain that is your emotional driver, and when you make a pre-assumption that why am I always safe and sound, the brain will figure out a way for you to be safe and sound. This is really really powerful and you can use these types of mental disciplines and interruptions of breaking patterns of negative bias that will really really help you go from a place of feeling that your life isn't working to it really working.
Speaker 1:So the next thing that you can do is what I call soothing yourself. So the main emotion that you're always trying to find when you're experiencing those uncomfortable emotions that arise for one reason or another in our life, the main emotion that we're always trying to feel is the emotion of relief. And when we feel relief, you're now not pushing against life, you're now flowing with life. And when we feel relief, you're now flowing with life. And when we feel relief, everything begins to change on the external world because, in truth, any outer chaos is a reflection of inner chaos. I've seen this time and time again that when I've been meditating and it's been noisy outside, as soon as I started to calm my mind, those sirens starts to go down. The city starts to feel quieter. I can hear the birds tweeting again when I'm in this really present, beautiful state. But when I'm chaotic in my mind and when there's a lot of thoughts going on, I can hear that external world really chaotic and bustling, like a city with all the sirens and all the noise. So I see the whole world as a reflection of my inner world and whilst that might be a lot to take on board right now, just notice that when you feel peaceful and you feel calm, notice how the environment is, just use it as an indicator and a feedback.
Speaker 1:So, in order to get to that calm state, after all, that heavy energy is presented itself in your body and in your belly. You need to talk to yourself in a soothing manner. This is really powerful and one of the ways you can do this is you can say everything's going to be okay, everything's going to be all right in time. This will pass, things are coming together, but all is well. I've been through things like this before. Things have improved, so there's no reason why this can't improve as well. Everything will be okay, everything will be all right, it's going to be okay, it's going to be all right.
Speaker 1:Just even that soothing tone and talking to yourself in this soothing manner actually calms the nervous system down, because in truth, we're talking to that inner child of ourselves that feels scared, that feels uptight, that feels worried or feels angry or feels discouraged, and we soothe that with that gentle talk. And when you do that, you're soothing your nervous system, Because in truth, that's the type of conversation you would have liked to have heard when you were five years old and you were going through that difficult moment. But if there was no adult to say that to you, you felt that real fear or you felt that real concern. So in order to heal ourselves and reset our nervous system, we have to understand that we're in control of our mind and that our mind will be shaped by the way we think and the way we talk to ourselves. So a soothing talk is really powerful.
Speaker 1:But if you need to get going, if you are not proud of yourself and you need to change, that's when you need to pipe up. You're like come on, I've been in this before, I can turn it around. And this is a different type of energy. It's a more empowering, encouraging energy for you not to wallow, for you not to feel discouraged. You need to give yourself that personal pep talk, but ultimately you're still relieving yourself of the energy. So, whether you need to soothe yourself or you need to give yourself, that you know, pick me up type of conversation. And you need to do it for 60 seconds, because in 60 seconds you will change the energy and the emotion.
Speaker 1:Because it takes about 60 odd seconds for us to change the feeling states inside of our body from not feeling good to feeling better. This is when the outer world begins to change doesn't change immediately, but it changes. Emotion is the first sign of a manifestation. So when you start to feel relief, you notice that you're on a good train. When you start to feel empowered, you know that you're on a good train. But when you don't feel any better, when you feel like nothing's actually changed emotionally, you know that what you haven't done yet has caused that state of relief or caused that state of encouragement.
Speaker 1:Because, ultimately, the only people that can really get our physical energy state to change is ourselves and the way we think about ourselves and the way we're thinking about a situation. Because in truth, all unhappiness is caused by the way we're perceiving a situation. That is it, and if we were to give it no thought, we would just witness it as it is. This is what Eckhart Tolle talks about in the Power of Now he goes. Most unhappiness is caused by the way we think about things.
Speaker 1:And if you're thinking about things negatively and the mind is constantly looking at things on a negative bias, then negativity will be on your slant. Then you know negativity will be on your slant. And when the challenges inside of our day have been persistent, it's because we've spent less time focusing on the good. And in truth, there are so many more things working in life than not working. And if you're able to listen to this, that means something's working. And if you've got a roof over your head, that means something's working. And if you've got food every day, that means something's working. And your life can get so much better when you focus on what you have rather than focusing on what you don't have.
Speaker 1:And because of the mind's constant negative bias, we're always looking about what we don't have. Shortage is really only something inside the human mind, and in the gospel of Matthewew it says to he who has more shall be given, and to who he who has not, more shall be taken away. And basically, in short, all this is saying is that when the mind is thinking about what he has or what she has, more shall be given because the mind is focused on what that person has. And vice versa, if they're focusing on what they don't have, more will be taken away because I don't have this. This is why, when people say I don't have enough, don't have enough time or don't have enough money, the mind will go. I believe you, so I'll send you less, but when you always go, I have more than enough time to figure this out. I have more than enough money to be able to figure this out. The mind than enough time to figure this out. I have more than enough money to be able to figure this out. The mind begins to change, but it's more important to ask a more empowering question what if this is going to be okay? What if this is going to be all right? This changes the trajectory. So when we come from a state of gratitude, we return to a state of alignment. When we come from a state about asking ourselves what's actually working rather than what isn't working, we return to a state of alignment.
Speaker 1:When I was having a challenge with my family and my father died, the challenge wasn't oh, I've lost my father. Oh, what am I going to do? My challenge is I've got everything I need. I've got to figure. I'm going to find a way to figure this out. I've got everything I need. I need to figure out what I need to do next to support my loved ones now. This allows us to use our mind in a powerful way rather than oh, poor me. Or what am I going to do? Who's going to help me now? Because the mind doesn't work like that. You need to ask yourself the empowering question and then you can move forward.
Speaker 1:I would always say that the most contrasting experiences that you have, the toughest ones when you hit the rock bottom, there's always a beautiful story and lesson that you can take from that, even if it's very uncomfortable because I couldn't be sitting here today being able to share candidly some of the things that I've gone through, that haven't felt great and come back and say it's going to be okay because I do know it's going to be okay because I've had tough moments and if you're listening to this or watching this, of course you've had tough moments. But now it's time to ask yourself better questions, because this is how you turn it around. This moves you to relief and curiosity and optimism, then taking you away. You know most people don't ask what if something beautiful is going to happen today, they just look at what is and go, oh, I don't like it or I don't like what happened today. That's never empowering. You're never going to get the magic and miracles vibe.
Speaker 1:Thinking like that, you're always going to have magic and miracles vibe. Thinking like that, you're always going to have magic and miracles vibe and those green lights and opportunities coming your way and beautiful jobs and wonderful new relationships by going. I wonder what amazing things could happen. This is just an absolute mindset shift. That is it. Your questions will determine your reality and if you're asking bad questions, you're going gonna stay in that negative loop. That was me for so long and as soon as I asked a good question, it literally took about one or two days for things to really turn for me, and they will for you. But do not believe me. Get your own experience and start asking some better questions and witness and observe what shows up in your life.
Speaker 1:So in this episode's big takeaway, just remember this the feelings that you have are valid. Don't try and push them away. Accept them and you can breathe through them. You can change your physiology and you can change that physiology by jumping in cold showers, going for a run, getting out into nature, whatever it takes for you to shift. And remember counting down from 30 can really focus your mind in a new direction when something wells up and it feels very uncomfortable, and then also asking those what if questions? Remember you're either a slave to your mind or you're the master. And you will be the master of your mind when you can control the way you think about certain situations and perspectives and the more you return to your center through things like gratitude, through things like being present, by things like owning how you feel, even if it's imperfect. This powers you up, and you will only ever move forwards in your life when you take a bold action that's actually going to help you move forward in the right direction. And sometimes, if things aren't going great, you might need to take a bold action today, whatever it may be.
Speaker 1:One of the firm things I really really believe in is always present yourself the best you can, even if life isn't great. So show up looking smart, looking fantastic, the best of what you've got available. Try and present yourself the best possible way, because when you present yourself the best possible way, the universe and life contained with all these people could offer you an opportunity that can change your fate, will change your direction. I hope you enjoyed this episode and there are some practical tools for you to take away, and if you can share this with somebody who you think needs it, this will actually help not only improve the quality of their life, but it's also going to help the quality of yours, because when you give, you also receive. So if you're giving empowering content to help other people, you're also empowering yourself, and this is how life really works.
Speaker 1:This podcast is just a ripple of positivity, trying to share with people how to manage their life and manage their minds so you can have a higher quality of life, because, ultimately, when you have a higher quality of life, you're living in heaven on earth, and that is what this mission is all about. It's not always easy, but it does take self-control and self-discipline does take self-control and self-discipline, and I hope this episode has inspired you to take some sort of action and recognize that nothing is out of your control. Things are within your control. You're never out of power and you do have a mind and a body in which you can change the way you feel, to change what you receive and change what you're getting in life. Until the next episode, I wish you a wonderful weekend and green lights all the way.