Pete Alexander | Surviving the Stress Storm: Strategies for Workplace Wellness [EP 24]

Episode Transcription

• Pete Alexander | Surviving the Stress Storm: Strategies for Workplace Wellness [EP 24]

  Intro: Are you ready to change your habits, sculpt your destiny, and light up your path to greatness? Welcome to the epicenter of transformation. This is Mick Unplugged. We'll help you identify your because so you can create a routine that's not just productive, but powerful. You'll embrace the art of evolution, adapt strategies to stay ahead of the game, and take a step toward the extraordinary. So let's unleash your potential. Now here's Mick.

  Mick Hunt: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to an exciting episode of Mick Unplugged. And today, we have a very special guest. He has a wealth of experience in stress relief and management. He's not only a seasoned academic, but also a seasoned professional with a remarkable journey through the worlds of both corporate America and entrepreneurship. With over 35 years of sales, marketing, and management experience, he's dedicated his life to helping others manage their stress and lead a happier, more productive life. Ladies and gentlemen, it is my distinct honor to welcome my friend, the professor, Pete Alexander. Professor Pete, welcome to Mick Unplugged, brother.

  Pete Alexander: Mick, thank you so much for that wonderful intro, and I really appreciate your time and the time of your audience as well.

  Mick Hunt: Dude, I love everything about you, reading and researching. We connected on LinkedIn. Been following you for a while. For the listeners and viewers, can you share your personal journey and what led you to focus on stress relief and stress management?

  Pete Alexander: Sure. Stress and I have had a lifetime relationship. I grew up in a very dysfunctional family, and growing up where you had to be or I had to be the adult or when the adults were not being the adults, it really adds a component of stress that as a kid, you don't really learn how to deal with properly. And what I did for the most part was try and push it aside and try and ignore it. And as an adult, I continued to do that in my career. And what happened was I just kept on letting things, you know, build up, build up, build up, and I just figured that, okay, I don't have time for it. It'll take care of itself. You know, that's what I hoped. And, unfortunately, what ended up happening, I was in my mid-forties, and all of a sudden, I started losing weight rapidly. And at first, it was wonderful. You know, I thought, hey, this is great. I'm not doing any special dieting. I'm doing my regular exercise, but nothing out of the ordinary, and the weight kept coming off. And this was as a result of a perfect storm of stressful activities that were going on in my life. My dad was dying, and he didn't do, you know, anything to take care of his affairs. My mom and they were divorced, but my mom had major hip surgery, but didn't have the insurance for the physical therapy and stuff, so she needed help. My kids were young at that time and wanted my attention. My business, you know, had a lot of employees, and they wanted my attention, and my marriage was heading for a divorce. Needless to say, lots of stuff on my shoulders. So this weight started coming off and I'm thinking, what is going on here? You know, at first, I'm thinking, you know, I haven't lost weight since I was in my mid-twenties. And I thought, okay. It's probably just a fluke, and then the pounds kept coming off. And after the 30th pound came off, I decided to have blood work done and it came right back and said, congratulations. You've got stress-induced diabetes. And the interesting thing is that in my family, I have a distant cousin who has diabetes, but nobody else in my family had diabetes. And here's the craziest thing of all, you would think that getting that diagnosis that I would actually do something. Oh, of course not. Instead, I didn't bother listening to my body about what stress was doing to it. Instead, I continued to burn the candle at both ends for another 10 years until I ended up in the emergency room and an extended stay in ICU with a severe case of diabetic ketoacidosis. And for the listeners who don't know what that is, basically, my body was eating itself alive because of my stress. That's nuts. The doctors told me I was one hour from being comatose, and here I was basically trading my health for my career and that is a really bad trade.

  Mick Hunt: And, Pete, you know what's crazy is that if you were to ask most employees, if you were to ask most executive leadership, it's how they feel almost every day. Right? Like, they're going through something that's stress-induced. And these are the words of Mick and Mick only, so not professor Pete. We don't feel like it's adult enough to say something's wrong. Right? So what advice would you give to listeners that know that they're going through stressful situations? And I'm gonna talk about work situations now. Right? Like, you're going through stressful work situations. What advice would you give to the listeners and viewers on how they can take the first step that you unfortunately had to wait too long to do?

  Pete Alexander: Right. It's a good question. So first and foremost, what I would do is highly suggest listening to your body. Basically, you know, we stress ourselves out both mentally and physically, and you just have to be aware. So let's say mentally, maybe you're, you know, if you're experiencing a problem with concentration when you used to be able to focus or you're getting mood swings and you're going from happy to sad or angry at a moment's notice, or you're getting some anxiety about something that may or may not happen about the future, or let's say you're finding that you're drinking more, or you're using your prescription drugs more. All of those things are indicators that you're mentally stressed. Physically, your body's going to give you early warning signs, which I completely ignored. Things like, let's say if it's wintertime and you're getting frequent colds instead of maybe one cold a winter season. Back and shoulder stiffness, that's probably one of the easiest ones to notice because when we're stressed, if we spend a lot of time sitting at a desk, we tend to hunch over when we're stressed and that puts a lot of pressure on our lower back, our shoulders, etcetera, so pay attention to that. If you're getting either excessive sleep or not enough sleep, that could be an indicator. Things like, digestive disorders where no amount of Pepto Bismol is helping you. Headaches where, let's say, you're reaching for the Excedrin bottle every day or every other day instead of occasionally because your headaches are so frequent. And, you know, the weight fluctuations, like I mentioned, it could be either gaining weight rapidly or losing weight rapidly. All those are indicators that you could be, you know, overly stressed. And if you're paying attention to that, then you can think, okay, now it's telling me, you know, my body's telling me I need to do something about it. It doesn't take a lot of time to help give yourself some balance. You just have to be willing to commit, you know, one or two minutes a day is as little as it can take to actually find some relief that can pay off over time if you continuously use it. The problem is a lot of us, we think, oh, well, you know, one or two minutes a day. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I don't even have that. And I think to myself and I think, you're kidding me. You don't have one or two minutes a day to focus on yourself. And, I mean, it could be as simple as doing a deep breathing exercise. It could be a simple visualization exercise. It doesn't have to be a lot, but when you find something that works for you, use it. Use it regularly. Use it daily. Multiple times a day if you need to, if you've got a very stressful situation. Just don't assume that it'll all go away because if we allow our stress to churn inside of us, that's where it becomes toxic and especially when we talk about our careers, not all stress is bad. In fact, a lot of stress is actually good. Things when we're working on projects, let's say, or something that we're really excited about, that kind of stress is actually good stress because we need to have some stress to get things done. You know? We have a deadline. We need to reach that. Where we really wanna focus on is the negative stress, some people call it distress. The negative stress where, you know, it comes in basically two flavors based on the research I did. One is ruminating about something in the past, and this usually is something that we're either guilty or about that we did or didn't do, and we let that guilt churn inside of us and that does us no good because it's in the past, we can't change it. We can take the positive learnings from it and if then if we can just forgive the rest of it, that can be an enormous help for us to get rid of that unhelpful, unproductive stress. And the other one I kinda touched on it earlier is anxiety about something that may or may not happen in the future. And think about, like, let's say we have to have a difficult conversation with an employee or our boss or some, you know, a customer, what whatever. And we start imagining that it's gonna go terribly. Well, not only is that negative feeling gonna continuously churn inside of our bodies and not do us any good, but we often manifest that outcome because we're thinking about the negative outcome over and over and over again. So one of the things that I highly recommend to people is think about that situation and let's say so if it's a difficult conversation, instead of, you know, imagining it going poorly, imagine five seconds after the last word has been spoken in that conversation and you imagine looking at that person and that person either smiling at you, shaking your hand, giving you a hug, whatever it means that it went well and if you can try and visualize that, what ends up happening is you'll notice that your stress starts going down because instead of trying to think about a negative outcome, you're thinking about a positive outcome.

  Mick Hunt: I love that, Pete. And one of the things that I always talk about, and I love for you to elaborate on this, is the role that mindset plays in managing stress because I think that's exactly where you were going. I tell people I'm not saying that our mindset can eliminate a lot of stress or most stress, but there are plenty of times that our own mindset is what is causing the stress. But then if we can change our mindset, the mindset can help us manage the stress that we have. So I'd love for you to talk about what role does mindset actually play in managing stress?

  Pete Alexander: Huge. It more than anything else because instead of taking the immediate negative route, like, you know, the old saying about the glass half empty or glass half full? Well, when we think about the negative, we continuously think, oh, why did this happen? You know, the victim role, etcetera. Instead of saying, okay. This is happening. What can we do to get through this? And be able to know that it's gonna get better. It's gonna get better. And having gratitude for what we currently have is a huge part of that mindset. Unfortunately, too many people don't look at what they've already achieved and look back and be grateful for what they've achieved based on the level of effort that they've done, the work that they've put in, etcetera. When we acknowledge and have gratitude for things that come to us, whether it's big or small, that is a game changer with the mindset. My wife and I, for example, at the end of each day, either she asks me or I ask her, that doesn't matter, but we ask, what are you grateful for today? And what we do is recap the various things that we had. Like, for example, tonight, one of my gratitude points that I'm gonna make to her is the conversation that you and I had. And, you know, it's just the, you know, when you recap and you think about the positive things, especially some of the small things that we might take for granted otherwise, then we start getting into this mode of really realizing that, okay, even if we've got a road bump that's coming up, we can get through that and we think about why is this challenge happening and if we in our mindset, if we can think about, okay, well, let's I'm stretching myself beyond my comfort zone. I'm doing something maybe I've never done before. Well, okay. So if we've never done it before, how are we supposed to be experts at it? We're in uncharted territory. Right? So, you know, of course, we're gonna have some speed bumps along the way. We're not perfect in areas that we've never done before. So we have to realize that it's not a mistake. It's basically the universe giving us feedback on our way to success. So if it doesn't work doing it one particular way, okay, that's not a mistake. You found out you can't do it that way. Try a different way. It's similar to, like, anyone who's wanted to get really good at sports, for example. You're not gonna walk on the basketball court the very first time never playing basketball and be an NBA player. You know? You're just not gonna do it. You have to put in the time and the practice, and that's what happens. You have to have that mindset that, okay. If this doesn't work, let's try something else instead of just wallowing in. Oh, it didn't work. I'm a failure. Blah biddie blah. That kind of mindset is not gonna do us any good.

  Mick Hunt: Totally agree. Professor Pete, one of the things that I am fascinated about you and your work is your 5-minute stress relief technique. I'd love for the listeners, and we're gonna give links to all of the stuff that professor Pete has. It's amazing. Can you explain your 5-minute stress relief technique and how it can be applied in your daily life?

  Pete Alexander: Sure. Basically, the book that I wrote, I wrote it because when I was looking for resources for when I ended up in the hospital, all the resources I could find were two to three hundred-page books on, like, one technique. So I don't need a three hundred-page book on how to meditate or, you know, how to deep breathe or something like that. The reality is most of us have 5 minutes or less before we got our next stressful activity that we're going to have to deal with. And so what I did is I focused my book on activities that you can do in 5 minutes or less. And so, like, for example, one that I absolutely love, the visualization we talked about, you know, trying to overcome some anxiety, but a simple visualization exercise that we can do at any point other than, let's say, if we're driving a vehicle. I'll walk you through this, Mick. So, basically, what you do is go ahead and close your eyes and take a deep breath in and I want you to go in your mind to a place you like to relax. Call it your happy place. Maybe it's the beach, maybe it's a park, maybe it's a lake, maybe it's your backyard, maybe it's the spa, maybe it's your favorite recliner. Whatever it is, go there now and take in all of your senses. What do you feel? Do you feel the sun on your face? Maybe the grass or the sand under your feet and what do you smell? Do you smell the fresh air? Maybe the lotion from the spa or maybe you made popcorn for your favorite movie. And what do you hear? Do you hear the wind blowing through the trees? Maybe the water splashing on shore? And what do you see? Do you see the blue sky? Maybe the green of the trees or the grass? Whatever it is, take it all in and then take another deep breath in and open your eyes. Simple visualization that can help ground you at any point. You know, this can be used before having a conversation. It can be before having to go to the doctor's office, let's say, anything like that. It's just a very simple grounding exercise, and it literally takes one minute.

  Mick Hunt: That was amazing. And for those that were watching, I don't know what it looked like, but I felt and I wouldn't even say I'm overly stressed or even mid-level stressed today, but, like, I'm breathing better all of a sudden. Right? Like, my shoulders are relaxed now all of a sudden, and that worked.

  Pete Alexander: Yeah.

  Mick Hunt: That worked. And so for everyone listening, go back and redo that and, like, really do it unless you're in your car like professor Pete said, but really do it because that worked. And, you know, Pete, what I love about that is I'm a huge mental health advocate, and I do a lot of consulting around mental health. And I tell people especially at work, if you're not taking a few 5-minute breaks per day, that's what's adding to the issues and stress that you have. And so I would tell everyone, especially if you're listening and you're a client of mine, we're gonna incorporate this into your deal. So I'm gonna see it on your calendar that you're gonna implement this because that was just amazing for me and something that simple, Pete, mind-blowing.

  Pete Alexander: It is, and it's so simple, Mick. It really is. And I love the fact that you've mentioned about the calendar because a lot of people say, oh, well, I can't find time in the calendar. Well, one of the things that I highly recommend as well is you book 5 minutes here and there, you know, a few times a day, you just book it into your calendar and you treat it like a normal appointment. So don't just blow it off. It's an appointment with yourself and you have to treat it as a priority. And it's amazing how once it gets in the calendar and it starts to become habit, then it actually works. And you mentioned about taking breaks throughout the day. Those micro breaks are so powerful. Getting up every hour from your computer or from the phone or whatever it happens to be and, you know, just take a quick walk or just stretch or whatever it happens to be because it's too easy for us to sit there and then all of a sudden the day's gone, and we're feeling like, oh, my back, my shoulders, etcetera. Yeah. Because if you're stressed and you're not doing anything to help your body during the day, it's you know, our bodies are the same bodies we had back at the Stone Age. So horny. You know? Exactly. And so back in the Stone Age, they weren't sitting at desks looking at their computers. Right?

  Mick Hunt: Right. And so it's amazing that you say that because I talk about those same things from a mental health perspective. Number one, when you take a 5-minute break, especially with remote work being a real thing. Right? Like, you and I both work remotely. Right. You have to leave your physical environment. You can't just say, okay. I'm gonna sit here and take a 5-minute break because you're still gonna look at something on your computer. You're gonna look at a notification. I tell people, leave your physical environment for 5 minutes and then come back because it's gonna help you. Because if you're not taking these breaks and, Pete, I know you know this. During work, you end up taking it home. And so then what happens when you're stressed at work and now you go home? Now you're irritable with your family and your friends. You're probably gonna eat bad. You're gonna make bad decisions just in general because all of that. But implementing 15 to 20 minutes of planned breaks throughout your day totally help you. And to Pete's point, I tell all of my clients, if it's on your calendar, it's gonna happen. If you don't put it on your calendar, the odds of it happening are very slim to none. So I love that you are on the same wavelength as me there because it's critically important, especially with work from home because everything's here. Right? And you don't have that break of, well, what's working, what's home.

  Pete Alexander: That's exactly it. And the other thing that's really important about for those of us that work remotely is to have an end of day anchor because it's too easy for us to continue work, work, work through the night. Right? And so what really is helpful is to figure out something that works for you that will signify to yourself that you're done working for the evening, for the day, etcetera. And, like, for example, what I do on the days that my wife works at the local hospital. And when I hear the garage door open, that is my signal. She's coming home. That's my signal to wrap up whatever last thing I'm working on. So that's my end of day anchor hearing the garage door. Now on days that she's not working at the hospital, then what I typically do is I actually have the window in my home office. I actually have where there's the sun shines through. When it hits this particular part of the window, that tells me, okay. That's the time. You gotta start wrapping up. So that's my visual reminder, but it's a matter of finding something. Some of us, you know, I know several people who what they'll do is their end of day anchor is they actually shut their computer off. That's the thing. That works. And the thing is that it's really important too that just because you shut your computer off, you should also do the same thing with the work aspects of your phone because we need to disconnect. And, you know, I'm sure you've seen this too, Mick. Being in a restaurant and, you know, watching people at a restaurant and they're what are they doing? They're sitting there at the table, and they're just on their phones. They're not talking.

  Mick Hunt: No communication.

  Pete Alexander: No. And I always wonder myself. It's like, why did you bother coming to the restaurant? You could have just got takeout if you're gonna do that. You know? It's you're losing out on the opportunity to have the full ambiance. And I actually don't take restaurants for granted anymore after COVID because when we couldn't go to restaurants, I really missed them. So it's interesting. You know, I've always recommended to people if they, you know, it's too easy for a text or a phone call or an email to take our priority. And what happens is when we look at that message and we stare at that, like, let's say, you and I are having this nice conversation and then all of a sudden, oh, you know, I gotta look at this. What does that tell me about you? It tells me what I'm conveying to you is, oh, whatever's on the phone is more important than the conversation you and I are having. Why do you wanna send that message to the other person? You should just be present with that person and so I always recommend either turning off the phone during the meal or here's a shocker if, you know, if you go to a restaurant, leave the phone in the car.

  Mick Hunt: It's all going right. Like, Pete, one of the cool things, I went to the masters with one of my best friends. I shout out to Darren the most, and that's the environment of the masters. Right? Like, you can't take your phone or any type of devices in. You actually have to talk, and you're there for, you know, six, seven, eight, nine hours in the most amazing escape of life. And my friend and I just got to talk to each other for two whole days. Amazing.

  Pete Alexander: It's amazing. Sadly, the future generations, they're just so addicted to their phones and I really hope that they learn that they can, you know, talking one on one is a powerful thing. You don't have to have the electronics there to do it.

  Mick Hunt: Right. It's almost like a lost art.

  Pete Alexander: Yes. Yeah. It's sort of it is. It's similar to, like, you know, when was the last time that you received a handwritten card, like, in the mail?

  Mick Hunt: I can't tell you.

  Pete Alexander: Yeah. But when it happens, isn't it I look at it and I actually cherish it because it someone took the time to handwrite that, and it's just it's a lost art as you said.

  Mick Hunt: Absolutely. Well, Pete, you've been so gracious with your time, and I'm thankful that we were able to make this happen. Where can people find you and follow you? And for the listeners, just so you know, Pete and I are gonna do this again. We've decided we're gonna make this, like, a monthly or bimonthly recurrence because he has so many tips, and I wanna make sure we're sharing with you.

  Pete Alexander: Well, it's wonderful, and I'm looking forward to that, Mick. Best way to reach me is just go to my website, petealexander.com, and reach out to me on my various social media channels. I've got a lot of tips there that in my YouTube channel, etcetera. They could see my TEDx talk, etcetera. So, welcome them to come look at that and reach out to me.

  Mick Hunt: And please do because it is in my repertoire. I watch something that Pete does daily because he has a lot of crazy cool things that you can implement. And to his point earlier, it just takes one or two minutes. But it's impactful one or two minutes. So, professor Pete, thank you. Can't wait to do this again. And for all the listeners, remember, your because is your superpower. Go unleash it.

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