 I have an opportunity, I don't know, maybe they won't be great, but maybe they'll be really, really great. And this is an opportunity. And I can't control what's gonna happen, but let's go in with that possibility. And so just reminding myself about that, rather than, oh, they're gonna think I'm stupid, they're gonna think I'm not interesting enough, all these things that have also gone through my mind before I go into a social situation. What's up everybody and welcome to the show today. We drop great content each and every week and we wanna make sure that you guys get notified. And in order to do that, you're gonna have to smash that subscribe button and hit that notification bell. And if you've gotten a lot of value out of this, make sure you give us a like and share our videos with your friends. I know for myself, when I get the most anxious, those what ifs become very daunting and a strategy that I've tried to use that has been effective is follow out to completion, the worst case scenario. So we'll often be like, oh, this is gonna be terrible, but what truly is terrible? So oftentimes our worries, the things that are triggering these anxieties, if you actually think them through, follow them out to the absolute worst case, they're not nearly as bad as we often label them. And that strategy has been really impactful for me. Another one that we talk about a lot with our clients is diffusing yourself from the emotion. So oftentimes, when we feel an emotion, we fuse ourselves to that emotion and we become that emotion. We don't realize that actually just creating a little bit of space, understanding that that's an emotion that I'm feeling, I've also felt a number of other emotions throughout today and this will pass like those other emotions. Can you speak a little bit about the impact that diffusion in our emotions has on our anxiety? Yeah, absolutely. That's such an important point. I also wanted to say that, that shift of mindset from, oh my God, this is gonna be terrible for our business to actually we can do it. That mindset shift is, I'll start with that and then I'll go to the next thing next, is so, so important, particularly for those of us that have anxiety, because it is something that can diffuse anxiety from, this is the end of the world, to, this is actually just fine and I love it because another gift that comes from anxiety is the gift of creativity. That mindset shift is asking you to use your creativity to, in this case, to look at the situation from a more distant perspective, sometimes to shift a task that was thrown at you into a challenge, like can you approach it like something that is a challenge for you? And those small shifts work your creativity in a great way and can be used in so many parts of your life, but it could also be used in emotions. So where are you kind of focusing that emotional real estate in where you are feeling? And while I am a big proponent of saying that all the emotions, the more uncomfortable ones as well as the joyful ones are equally important, I certainly don't want people dwelling only in anger or only in, you know, hatred for a long time, but it's always useful to feel them because they're, again, they're telling you something. You can't, I don't recommend acting from that emotion of hatred, but feel it. Say, okay, yeah, that is what's happening and then try and step back to ask, what is that hatred? Well, wow, that was a big bout of hatred. Where's that coming from? And sometimes it comes from something specific, sometimes it comes from just a general situation. I'm just feeling hateful today because so many bad things happened. And it also gives you a new perspective on how to move forward. So feel the feelings. We're never gonna get rid of hatred, anger, anxiety, all these uncomfortable emotions, but then address them from a point of curiosity, from a point of creativity, and from a point of asking what they can tell us about our values. I know many of us, when we feel anxiety, there's a physical sensation often tied to it. We'll feel hot or flush in our face. We'll feel pain or tightness in our muscles and our body is reacting. And sometimes just scanning your body and thinking about all the different feelings and sensations that are going on, again, can reroute that focus away from the actual anxiety into a more meaningful pathway for you to move forward. And we talk about this in a social setting. So many of our clients come to us feeling some social anxiety exactly as you were saying. And I think it's really important. I'm glad that you share that you still feel it because many will think, oh, I just have to banish anxiety. Like the end goal is to never feel that way again. And that's not practical. You're feeling that anxiety because you care because you actually want relationships. You wanna be viewed positively. And that's a good thing. We don't wanna become robots and we don't wanna lose that anxiety but understand that anxiety is a meaningful signal that, hey, I'm about to meet some really awesome people. And guess what? They're probably feeling it too. And I think that's really important that we normalize these feelings instead of labeling social anxiety as bad and feeling like we're broken or we're different or we're incomplete. Everyone right now is feeling it. Were there things that you would do in preparation or social events that would help you counteract that social anxiety that you knew you would be feeling? You know, it's going back to earlier part of the conversation and just reminding myself that this is a great opportunity. I love meeting great people and I have an opportunity. I don't know, maybe they won't be great but maybe they'll be really, really great. And this is an opportunity and I can't control what's gonna happen but let's go in with that possibility. And so just reminding myself about that rather than, oh, they're gonna think I'm stupid. They're gonna think I'm not interesting enough. All these things that have also gone through my mind before I go into a social situation. Well, that reframing is incredibly important. And I don't think you're going to be able to reframe properly if you don't have a working relationship with that anxiety and yourself when you are experiencing it. Another thing that I was laughing about with AJ earlier is I also last night went through it was worst possible scenario but also how long we've been doing this 15 years and I also went through the problems that I was worried about in the past what had happened when we experienced them. And so I went through all those and I was like, oh, we've been through more scary things that have happened doing our live programs over the last 15 years and we've done them in different cities and different countries without half the resources that we have when we're at a home base and they were amazing. But again, without working through that without understanding what state I was in and having that conversation it would only allow that to continue to percolate. We drop great content each and every week and we wanna make sure that you guys get notified and in order to do that you're gonna have to smash that subscribe button and hit that notification bell and if you've gotten a lot of value out of this make sure you give us a like and share our videos with your friends. Yeah, yeah, I talk about that in the book as our natural human negativity bias. So if lots of things happen, some bad, some good what do we do? It's like, oh, remember that? That one comment that that person gave about my talk. Oh my God, that was terrible. When there's 3000 other positive comments, right? And it's also somewhat a protective mechanism. It also works, I think people will relate to this in a social situation where in my academic world we're always evaluating candidates, evaluating things. And you have to be very, very careful about what you say about these different applications. Even a small negative thing can tank this application because the negative comments have so much more power than the positive comments. And so that's really important to keep in mind for what you hear on the outside. Remind yourself, are you only focusing on that one negative comment and ignoring all the beautiful comments that other people, I found myself doing that the other day for myself and a friend tapped me on the head and said, God, stop focusing on that. I said, oh God, I'm doing it again. We all, and we have to get comfortable with that idea that no matter how well you even understand all of this it's you're still programmed to view it in one way and that you have to override that programming. Yeah. And it's learning. I mean, that is the reason why that the underlying theme of the whole book, Good Anxiety is brain plasticity. The brain's ability to learn, to respond to the environment and there's positive brain plasticity that includes all the learning that we do and all of the situations that we can help promote positive brain plasticity like movement, working out, meditation, sleep, so important, but then negative brain plasticity. The brain also responds negatively to prolonged negative stimuli like stress, like bad anxiety as we've been talking about. And with that negativity bias, many of us are hypercritical of ourselves, some of them in the audience are even perfectionists and not only are we primed to hold on to the negative but we often stop our self-analysis on the negative and we teach all of our clients, it's okay to critique yourself but we have to weigh the scale and tip it to an equilibrium and give yourself an opportunity to be positive about whatever you could take away from that experience. So even if you bombed your talk, even if you went to that event and you didn't meet anyone cool or fun, well, what were the positives? What went your direction? Well, you showed up on stage, you actually had an audience in front of you, you got out of the house and got an opportunity to meet some new people even if they weren't for you and it's so important that we realize we're primed to think in the negative, we're primed to hold on to the negative so to counteract that, we also have to spend some time focusing on the positive. And for me, sometimes that's relying on a friend like Johnny saying, hey, I'm in this loop, I'm in this situation or my fiance Amy can help me snap out of that. So one of the things that we're seeing now is not only are we feeling anxiety but the people that we love, the people that we care about are also feeling anxiety and I know many in our audience are parents and they really wanna help their children deal with it in an effective way and we now know that we begin out of the rug telling them not to feel it to avoid it is not helpful. So what advice do you have for the parents who are listening who are concerned about the anxiety their children are facing? Yeah, so anxiety for kids just like anxiety for ourselves. I think the first thing is to learn how to turn it down, learn how to get out of that really negative spiral of anxiety and we've already talked about the power of the breath. I'd love that one because if you practice it when your kids don't have anxiety they can use it while they're standing in line at school whether in class if anxiety comes up you can model and practice that together. You could even do it if they get anxious during a conversation. So have them do it while the other person is talking and they don't even know the other person doesn't even know you're doing it because you could kind of do it in a stealth manner. But the other tool that I like to give again for both parents and kids is movement. I've spent many years studying the effects of physical activity on the brain and every single time you move your body it's like you're giving your brain a wonderful bubble bath of neurochemicals because every time you move your body you are releasing dopamine, serotonin, neuroadrenaline and growth factors and the more bubble baths you give your brain the better you feel. It improves your mood that's why you go out for a walk and you feel better. It's those neurochemicals that you're stimulating. That's also a wonderful thing if you know that your kid or yourself is going to be anxious because of a particular situation get that walk in before you go. Get there after having a good power walk and get yourself to that level. But then even with kids you could also start practicing how do you feel? It's okay to feel afraid. It's okay to feel worried. Let's talk a little bit about why you might be worried and then bring in all the things that you guys talked about so beautifully. Is this the best thing? Do you think we could survive this situation with your friend that's causing you problems? Yes, of course we can. And talk it through and be that wonderful coach for your kid but let them know that it's okay to feel those emotions but give them the tools to turn down the worst parts of the emotion of anxiety.