It’s just under a week since I got back from TEDx San Juan Island, where I gave my second TEDx talk. The theme of the event was “Origins” which was a great subject to work with when it comes to stress because as humans stress is our primal reaction to danger from both a physical and mental perspective.
I can’t wait to share the video of the talk I gave which was called “The Key To Staying Calm In A Stressed Out World”, but until that becomes available I wanted to share my journey and experiences of TEDx San Juan Island.
Giving a TEDx talk is a pretty major thing for anyone and for me it was no exception. It’s an incredible platform to influence and spread your message both at the event and then digitally afterwards. For me, I got to influence leaders of the future at the event and I will be able to share the video of my talk to my online audience of business leaders and corporate executives for years to come.
But, with all of these positives comes the equal pressure to create/write the perfect talk, perform it on stage (in English) and deliver my message to thousands if not hundreds of thousands of audience members and online viewers.
Even though this was my second TEDx talk and I thought maybe it would be an easier process this time, I was definitely challenged to create an even more valuable talk. The hands on approach of the team was welcomed as they guided me to bring out my message and tweak it to fall in line with their vision for the event.
I’ll admit that sometimes it was overwhelming and sometimes I could feel the stress creeping in as I prepared the talk, and then got down to the business of learning it and rehearsing/“performing” it.
Remember, I’m Swedish and although I speak fluent english it’s can still be daunting to stand up and give a talk from memory in a different language.
So, what did I do to overcome the stress creeping in?
First I went back to basics and made sure to take care of myself by keeping to my daily routines of gently exercising, sleeping well and eating at regular times.
Your daily routines are the foundations of your health and help you in managing your stress and getting through your day calmly.
Secondly, I prepared and organised myself to make sure I had enough time to put the work into the project.
One of the major triggers of stress is being unprepared and disorganised, and although we can “wing” some things in our lives and in the workplace, being prepared keeps things calm and on track. Plus, it gives you the extra time to deal with the things that will go wrong or change on the way.
Thirdly, I reached out for help from experts.
Reaching out for help is a big sign of strength (not weakness like most people think). We’re not supposed to be experts at everything and it’s ok to say. “Ok, I need some help with this to get it right!” In fact you’re more likely to be successful if you work with others towards your goals.
Leaders just like you will be faced with events and projects that will feel daunting and you could instantly feel a wave of stress rushing over you, or you can remember that there is a process that can help you achieve the goal of the event or project successfully and more importantly….Calmly!
It’s so important that we enjoy the journey towards our goals and we miss out on that if we are stressed out!
In summary:
When you’re faced with a daunting task, check in on yourself and remember to:
Eat energizing, healthy foods regularly. Sleep regular hours every night to rest your body and mind. Exercise your body to boost your energy and clear your mind.
Be prepared and organised. Take some time out before you start to map out everything that needs to be done and by when, giving yourself a little extra time for unexpected things.
Reach out for help. Find the people who are good at the things you’re struggling with. Let them help and guide you so that you learn from them and overcome the obstacles without wasting time trying to work it all out yourself.
If this has helped you in any way, please share your journey or questions in the comments below, and if you feel like you need a bit of extra help you can download my e-book,Leadership With Less Stress, below to set you up with the foundations of stress management.
To your success!
P.s. I’m hoping to get the TEDx San Juan Island talk back on video in the next month but until then (and in case you missed it) here is my talk from Tedx PSU Berks.
Today I want to talk about a client I had a couple of years ago. It was three years ago that I met with this young lady called Ingrid.
She was only 33 years old and at home she had three younger kids. She was the middle manager of a work group of around 20 people.
Her life was crazy! There was so much to do and she was really trapped in the hamster wheel.
She reached out to me and we set up a mentor program for a three month meeting every second week over Zoom. Each time we had an hour together and she came every time to the meetings and she was really searching for help, telling her story, telling what she needed and had all these ideas of what and how she could do other things and what she would do until the next meeting and the next meeting came and she had never done anything. She had done, nothing. And the same thing over and over and over again.
She was so enthusiastic every time, and each time I thought now it’s going to happen. But nothing happened. And then after three months she just said goodbye and I don’t have time for this so I’m not going to take your time because I can’t do it.
I felt so bad because I could see she really needed it and I did feel that she did understand that she needed it. If she had just made that decision deep down in her mind to do it. I did try to connect with her again but she didn’t answer my calls or my emails and I felt so bad because I’d really wanted to help her and she needed the help badly.
I know that some people are not coachable but she didn’t seem like that kind of person. Anyway, time went by and about a year ago I met her again after network meeting and then she came over to me cheerful and joyful and smiling and she said:
“Oh, it’s so nice to meet you again Dr Annika, I want to tell you what happened after we worked together. You know I was so ashamed that I didn’t do what you told me to do or what I said I would do.” she said “I was so ashamed and when we didn’t have those discussions anymore I felt so lonely because I had really appreciated our calls, even though I didn’t do anything about it.”
“But not having you there actually made me realize that I had to do the work myself. It hadn’t gone all the way up in my mind that it was my responsibility to do all the things that we had been talking about and I had known it all the time but I hadn’t really taken it into my heart that that’s what was going on.”.
“So after we stopped talking and calling during the mentorship I did take the program again I did take all the worksheets that we had all the all the things I went through it again and again and again and slowly I figured this is what I need to do and this is how I can do it because you gave me all the tools I just didn’t take them, and then I didn’t take them by myself. I wish I had had the courage to call you again and and get your help once again. But I was too proud.” She said. “I couldn’t do that. I was way too proud. I didn’t really want to do that so I did it on my own.”.
And today the work this is going well and I’m at the same place. My family’s thriving, kids are good. They’re growing and things are good. I say I have a good life today and I thank you so much for all the help you did give me even though you didn’t see that at the time. Today I would say to everyone that you need to have a Dr Annika by your side to help you through the hardship because it’s worth so much to have someone to help you see what you really need and to give you the tools for it”.
So WOW! That was for me, really nice to hear. That meant that she was not uncoachable. She was coachable but she was a little bit slower in taking action and I was so happy to see her in this good state and for her kind words.
It is easier to make changes when you have someone holding your hand or being by your side and today I still help stressed out CEOs, executives and managers who are afraid to lose control of the stress, who are afraid of decreasing profits, afraid to lose their confidence and who may even be getting ill from the stress, because stress is not good for your mind or for your body.
I help them to reflect and to ponder about what they need to make a halt in life so that they can make the changes and then when they have identified their what they need to do to leave the hamster wheel so that they can be the big healthy, happy leader that they want to be.
If that is you then please feel free to click the link below and get a free Strategy Session session for about half an hour where we can see what your needs are and see what you have to do to get out of the hamster wheel. It’s all free so click the link below. Thank you.
Hi, Dr. Anika Sorensen here from the blog Ask Dr. Annika where we help stressed out business leaders to become the calm, healthy, good working leaders they always dreamed to be.
Today I want to talk about a client that I had two years ago because I had a reconnection with him the other week. My client is a man called Lars who is 47 years old and working in a middle manager position with 25 people in his work group. He thinks that is a little bit too much.
I met him two years ago when he asked me to help him and it was more or less a coincidence that we did meet in the beginning but I soon realized that he was on the verge of burnout. He was really going to suffer a health collapse soon if he didn’t do anything about his situation. So, I asked him if he wanted to do something about it and he sure did.
He had never told anyone else about this so, on the outside you couldn’t really see that he wasn’t feeling that well especially if you don’t know what to look for. He hadn’t even told his wife how bad it was. Even though, I guess she, from what I understood from him she did see but they didn’t really put that out in the open in the family.
So I asked him what was the deal, what was the thing that helped you? Why are you such a happy business leader today and your group is working so fine?
What happened? Why? What was the biggest reason? And he said:
“Well the first thing was that you asked me how I was, and for the first time ever I told somebody and it was good that it was somebody outside my own personal circle. I told somebody how it really was and after I had done that it was like a stone fell off my heart. I didn’t realize that I had been carrying this great burden for such a long time and it was such a big release when I had it out in the open, when I could hear my own words and when I could hear myself talk about it.”
“The next thing you did was you asked me where are you heading? I had never thought about that. Really, well, probably I have thought about it before but that was not the issue at that time. My only concern was how do I get away from all the things that I didn’t want to deal with. So I was heading away from things not towards anything. You made me realize that you have to work towards something and then the things that you don’t want, they will eventually cease because you don’t put your focus on it. You get what you focus on. So that was a really big change in my work with the work group. It was a real eye opener.”
“And then when we were on track I was a bit hesitant, I must admit, about saying what I was heading towards because you asked me to make a one year leap or a one year goal and I couldn’t really see that far.” He said.
We discussed and I said “You have to see where you’re going towards and what direction you’re going but you don’t have to see the end goal at first. You can take one step at a time and it will come clear.”
The next thing he said was; “you forced me to take care of my sleep, of my food and of my physical activity so that I would get some energy, and you were so right that the way to get the energy is that you have to take care of yourself. After a while I felt so much better!”
“Next I started to make some changes within my work group.” and he said “I especially remember one thing because you asked me what I think about all the people in my network and there was this guy in my work group who was really good at what he was doing but he was not my kind of person and I sometimes had a hard time with that, especially when I didn’t feel well myself. You helped me to see that and learn how to tackle that too. How to keep him doing all the good stuff that he does and at the same time I could be around him without really just worrying all the time, which helped me a lot. We did a lot more changes to many different things.”.
“I also made some changes in my personal life, and I still have my family.”.
So now two years later he was happy. Things were going fine with work and he was still in the same position. They have increased their profitability in his group to double and it is a happy group and he loves his work.
Like I said he still had his family and the family life was also so much better now two years later.
It was it was for me very nice to catch up with him. It’s nice to see that the things, the little things that you do with your life that they can make such a big difference.
If you want help with your situation or you know somebody else who needs help with this situation then feel free to reach out. Just click the link below and we can connect and see if there is anything I could do for you too.
I’m so happy to be able to finally share the video of my Tedx PSU Berks talk from last November. It really was such an honour to be up there on stage in the company of all the other great speakers.
At this event I talked about harnessing our own power to overcome the stresses that we all suffer each and every day. As leaders in business we have to juggle so many different things and we are often trying to troubleshoot so many problems that it can be overwhelming. Adding to that trying to maintain and happy home life and social life then it’s no wonder that we can be left feeling exhausted mentally and physically.
The problem that most don’t realise is that it doesn’t matter how strong we think we are and it doesn’t matter how much we think we can cope with it all because stress is stronger and will eventually make us sick physically, and for sure, not be able to be at our best mentally.
That’s why stress management is so important for the leaders of today, for your workforce and just about everyone. It doesn’t matter if you’re a woman or a man and it doesn’t matter if you’re running a small business alone or the head of an international company because stress doesn’t discriminate.
We can’t run away from stress either or think we can get rid of it because we need it!
We just need to manage it so that we can work at our best at all times and live a happier and more relaxed life.
After suffering the effects of stress myself and seeing many patients become sicker and sicker through stress in my time as a medical doctor, I have made it my passion to help and educate leaders in the business world and beyond to help people lead a better life and become more successful in their work.
If you have a chance to support a Tedx event in your own town, I really do urge you to go. Not just to support the people who work so hard to put it together but to absorb the great knowledge and experience.
Here are a few pictures from the event….
This is not the end of my Tedx journey as I will be speaking at the TedxSanJuanIsland in June 2019 and I will update you of the schedule as soon as it’s released.
If you enjoyed this talk and think that this is something that could help you personally and/or in your workplace then please get in touch via the contact form or click here to book a free call with me.
Welcome back to the Ask Dr Annika Blog where I bring you my knowledge and experience as a leader in business and as an MD to help you manage your daily stress levels, become healthier and be a better and more successful leader.
Today I want to talk to you about the most important thing to get in order to be less stressed, to get good energy and to do all that good work that you want to do. I am not talking about time management or about meeting management or about how to take care of your staff or any other thing that may be on your list. It’s not about taking care of the to do list. It’s about taking care of your sleep!
Yes, sleep is really the basis of a healthy life, of a good life and the way you get to reach your full potential.
So why is that?
Well because when we sleep we do some housekeeping in the brain so to speak. That’s the time when all those waste products are supposed to be flushed out when you are in the deep sleep and all those impressions that you had during the day you kind of reworked them in the back of your head.
You don’t know about it most of the time but that’s how it works and science is clear about this; Sleep is groundbreakingly important to good health.
If we don’t sleep for a very long time in the end you actually could die from it so it’s extremely important.
The first thing is that everything your body wants is in regularity. It wants a regular sleep, every night. The same hours. That may seem a bit boring because you might want to do things on the weekend but your brain does not know about the weekends when this system was set up. I’m talking about way back then when this system was set up they didn’t have weekends, all they had was work days.
They said maybe they had a lot of food one day and they could take a day off but it was not the two days a week that we call weekends where you could sleep late or do something different to your “working week”.
So your brain actually feels the best if it does get the same over and over and over again and science says that you need seven to eight hours per night.
I know a lot of people telling me that they they don’t specifically need that but I’m telling you as a medical doctor that most people actually do need this sleep for a seven to eight hours a night.You might be able to cope on 4 or 5 hours sleep but you will thrive on 7 or 8!
If you haven’t done it before if you start doing it you will feel so much better. And as I said same time on weekdays as on the weekends. Yes, you can make exceptions of course if there is a cool party to go to something else you really want to do sometimes of course you can do it, just not on a regular basis.
Your brain wants to have the clean up session at the same time every 24 hours. That’s simply how we work.
What more can you do to get that good sleep?
Well, after regularity the second thing that is very important is to take all the electronics out of your bedroom at least one hour before you’re going to bed because, the light from your mobile phone or from your ipad etc. kind of tricks with your sleeping hormones and suppresses them so that you don’t get tired enough to go to sleep. It then takes longer and you will lay down and take some time just scrolling until your brain is set again so all electronic devices out of the bedroom for at least one hour before going to bed.
You say “well I use my mobile phone for as an alarm” and then I suggest go and buy a simple my alarm clock that is just the alarm and use that instead. That’s going to help your brain. That’s how it is. Sorry if it seems a bit boring.
Third thing you can do is to take out all the work from your bedroom because the bedroom is for sleeping, it’s not for working and your brain kind of knows that you have the work right beside you so it can’t really let it go. You want to let it go because then you’re going to sleep so much better. So, you take the work out of your bedroom. Don’t work in your bedroom. That’s as simple as that.
I know that you do get bright thoughts or you get this big idea that you really want to save at night time so, of course, you can have a pen and paper right beside your bed and you just write it down and then the next morning it will be remembered. You don’t miss out on that but it hasn’t taken or stolen your energy during the night.
Another quick tip is to turn down the temperature a little bit in your bedroom because we sleep better when it’s a little bit cooler. I would say like 18 degrees Celsius which iss somewhere around the ideal temperature for a good sleeping so that the brain gets its best rest.
Also, one more thing you can do is to de-clutter your bedroom in a more general way and we already did take out the work things right, and now I want you to take out all of the other stuff that’s just lying around because it’s kind of takes up energy in your brain and you need that energy to go to sleep, to get new energy the next morning.
So a quick recap on these tips:.
Regular sleeping hours.
No electronic devices.
No work in your bedroom.
Cool it down a little bit.
Clean up the clutter.
This is not a quick fix. It’s going to take some time before you get that really good sleep every night but, this is a very good start. Just pick one thing and change it then move on to changing the second and then a third til you are doing all of the above.
If you did need help with this, feel free to click the link below and we can get connected so that I can help you on the way to your best leadership.
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