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Inspiring, motivating discussions on getting #EverBetter every day with people who live extraordinary lives.

Guests from diverse backgrounds share stories of navigating life’s twists and turns and coming out on top! Optimism, persistence, infectious energy and a drive for continuous improvement shine through in each candid conversation.  

Lisa’s guests are entrepreneurs, authors, community-builders, doctors, life coaches, Pilates instructors, TED speakers, women farmers, Congresswomen, moms and dads, and so much more!

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Nov 25, 2016

This podcast is a reunion of sorts with Doug Hensch, my 11th podcast guest on an episode I produced 9 months ago. And Doug and I go waaay back beyond that. We used to work together at Nextel, which is now Sprint, before we both shifted our career paths. Doug is the father of two active boys, an executive coach, and an author. When we last spoke, Doug was writing a book about resilience and today he’s joining us to share some of the wisdom from his book, Positively Resilient: 5 1/2 Secrets to Beat Stress, Overcome Obstacles, and Defeat Anxiety.

 

Listen to this episode to hear Doug discuss what resilience is and the importance of being resilient as you go through life. He encourages the principles of resilience to create happy and healthy habits in his sons’ lives as well as in his own life.

 

Doug shares ideas that he uses for himself and with his kids to set intentions for the day so that you are always working towards achieving your larger goals, and are less likely to be diverted by social media, the news, and other distractions. We talk about optimism, and why too much of it can be a problem, and ways to track your progress to reinforce what you’re achieving. In our last discussion, Doug and I shared our views on free-range parenting, and this time, we get into helicopter parenting, which is now a problem in the workplace. Parents are actually calling their adult children’s supervisors to complain about performance evaluations and raises! As an expert in resilience, Doug always returns to one of his favorite sayings about a black belt in Jiu Jitsu: “A black belt is a white belt that never gives up.”

Listen to the conversation to hear us discuss:

  • Feedback: Why the good, the bad, and the ugly is important to make thriving. However, it can be difficult to accept feedback on your own work.
  • Doug's new book! Positively Resilient: 5 1/2 Secrets to Beat Stress, Overcome Obstacles, and Defeat Anxiety
  • The importance of resilience in life in order to live a healthy, happy, and meaningful life!
  • How resilience can be both a natural and learned life skill
  • Neuroplasticity and the ability to rewire the thoughts and habits you create for yourself
  • The effects of over-parenting on developing resilience in our children
  • How parenting styles have evolved from the “good ol’ days”
  • Participation medals" How they are a disservice to today’s youth by rewarding them without achieving anything or showing an exemplary effort
  • How a parent’s fear of failure on their child’s achievement will ultimately end up holding their child back from becoming happy, healthy members of society to find their own way
  • Carrying the theme of “Rising to the top through resilience” with the balloon imagery on the cover of Positively Resilient and throughout the book
  • Goal setting as a positive force in your life
  • Tracking your progress by breaking down a large goal into smaller incremental goals to help you realize your success along the way
  • Diet and sleep - critical to resilience especially as you get older
  • Using an index card and the question,“What are you going to do today?” to improve your family life
  • Using an intentions journal to release the overwhelm and stress people feel daily
  • Psychological flexibility - All the hats you can put on in life to help you diversify your way of thinking, so you’re not stuck in one perspective including:
    • Pessimistic Hat
    • Detective Hat
    • Cowboy Hat
    • Optimistic Hat
    • Green Hat
  • Visualization: Most effective for achieving short-term goals by providing positive emotions that are motivating and energizing. However, visualization can also be considered fantasizing and this can be counter-productive for achieving long-term goals
  • Common traits of resilient people: Constantly trying to improve, being willing to learn new things, and experimenting while not being afraid to fail
  • Getting over fears of starting something new
  • Re-frame your thinking and asking yourself, “What can I do to experiment as a scientist of my own life?”
  • The concept of being a lean startup. Taking small actions to test something new, get early feedback and adjust your plan as needed

Quotes from Doug:

On resilience: “It’s this foundational quality that I think is necessary to live a healthy, happy, meaningful life. And I look at it as bouncing back from obstacles, learning from our mistakes, our adversities, our wins in life. Reaching out to other people and connecting with other human beings. And I think it’s also finding this really interesting place in life where, at times, we can be motivated by the challenges in front of us in a really positive way as opposed to finding ourselves in this deep state of stress and anxiety.”

 

“I believe that we praise for effort but to give trophies or medals when kids don’t achieve anything, or put forth an exemplary effort, is harming them.” On the balloon imagery in the book: “I think the whole idea is that even when things look difficult there is a way to re-frame it. There is almost always a way to learn from your adversity and to continue to increase your resilience [....] The balloon rises through every chapter. It just goes a little bit higher until it gets to the top of the page in the last chapter.”

 

“By simply paying attention to the things that are important in my life, I am more likely to do them and then reap the benefits of those.”

 

“Your best project managers in my mind, for instance, have that realistic optimism, where they believe the team can achieve it, but they’re not blind to the risks and the issues that the team faces.”

 

“Not everything works for everybody. Find things that you can gravitate towards and have a couple of strategies ready to go. Be prepared to habituate to some of those and then move on to other strategies.”

 

“One of the hallmarks for people who achieve their goals is, wait for it, THEY GET STARTED.”

 

Contact Lisa: Lisa@EverBetterU.com

@EverBetterU

 

Contact Doug: @DougHensch