The Confident Podcast
The Confident Podcast, presented by Lead and hosted by certified coach and Lead President Lisa Tarkington, is your go-to resource for mastering confidence and leadership. Whether you're battling self-doubt, imposter syndrome, or just looking for a space to feel understood, this podcast offers real conversations, practical tools, and expert insights to support your growth. You’re not alone in your journey—no matter where you are in life, you'll find motivation, connection, and strategies to step into your full potential with confidence.
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The Confident Podcast
EP 192 | Understanding Stress: Finding Your Triggers and How to Manage Them with Princess Castleberry
Uncover the keys to building confidence and navigating stress in this inspiring episode of The Confident Podcast. Host Lisa Tarkington sits down with Global Speaker, Princess Castleberry to explore how self-awareness, managing triggers, and embracing the present can transform your leadership and personal growth. Packed with relatable stories and actionable insights, this episode will leave you feeling empowered to tackle challenges and step into your authentic self.
0:00 Navigating Confidence and Leadership Challenges
7:49 Overcoming Words
14:54 Mastering Stress and Conflict as Leaders
18:40 Identifying and Addressing Triggers
23:42 Empowerment Through Self-Aware Choices
28:38 Navigating Burnout and Self-Care Solutions
43:07 Choosing Self-Care and Growth
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I had an executive leader, a woman leader, ask me one day, literally verbatim how did you get here, how did you find out about this career? Because you don't look like a risk manager.
Speaker 2:Welcome to the Confident Podcast. I am Lisa Tarkington, your guide to mastering confidence and leadership. As the business and life coach keynote speaker and the driving force behind LEAD, I am here to help you break free from self-doubt, silence the imposter syndrome and step into your power as the person you're meant to be. If you press play today, it's because you're ready for something bigger. Each week, I'll bring you real, raw conversations and actionable insights that will empower you to redefine your leadership, reclaim your confidence and transform into the unstoppable force you've always known that you could be. This isn't just another podcast. It's a journey we're on together, so buckle up and let's dive into this transformation. Your next level awaits. Hi everybody, welcome back for another episode of the Confident Podcast. I'm your host, lisa Tarkington, and, as you can see, we have a new set. We're having a great year. We're just kind of kicking off, having some fun. I really wanted to position the podcast to be a little bit different, different vibe than maybe what you've gotten in the past years. Kind of bring out my personality more and just more. So just kind of set the tone of really what I want for 2025, which is you and me who's ever listening to? Really just have some really amazing conversations, even when we have guests on. I want you to feel like you're sitting in the room with us having the conversation, learning from individuals and just like sparking that curiosity of the growth that you want as a leader, that you want in your confidence or, honestly, just hearing from people's stories and being like I can relate, or here's the tools that I'm gonna take from it. So that's what we're going to be diving really into as we get into these podcasts more and more. I'm really excited for an amazing year ahead of us. So I wanted to kick off a little bit differently than I normally do on each episode of sharing a quote with all of you to kind of set the tone for today. So the greatest weapon against stress is our ability to choose one thought over another, and this is by William James. So the greatest weapon against stress is our ability to choose one thought over another, and this is by William James. So the greatest weapon against stress is our ability to choose one thought over another.
Speaker 2:And as we're in the new year, as we're thinking about maybe the stresses from the holidays, maybe kind of getting energized for the future, we still have triggers in our lives. We still have stresses in our lives. We might be just taking a break from being burnt out, from a really hard 2024. And I'm just going to be honest, that's okay. I have thought of for me and reflected a lot at the end of 2024 on what that year looked like for me and honestly, it was a building year for me. There was a lot of stressful moments. There was a lot of moments that I had to make changes and I'm just like ready for a year of action.
Speaker 2:We'll dive into that today with our guest as well. She has some really really great tips on and really challenges some of my thought processes as well, which I think is really fun to hear from other thought leaders. And so, when all of these things come, when we are stressed, when we're misaligned, when we're kind of triggered by something maybe someone said or something someone did, we're kind of misaligned. When we're kind of triggered by something maybe someone said or something someone did, we're kind of misaligned in our confidence. We kind of maybe shut down, get defensive, have like kind of like a bad experience. And what I really want us to do from taking away from everything that you're going to learn today is really take away that like. It doesn't always have to be a bad experience, but it's how we approach things, how we see truth in our thoughts and how we make decisions in the moment. So I'm not going to be doing this alone.
Speaker 2:I am bringing on an amazing guest, princess Castleberry, who is a global speaker and a risk strategist.
Speaker 2:So I met Princess years prior to having her on this podcast and I have just watched her explode over the years.
Speaker 2:When I say explode, I mean become a thought leader, expert in what she talks about, to become the person that people want at meetings and moments, because she's just full of energy and love and she makes you feel seen and heard and I think that that's so important to bring on guests that see that way. So a little bit about her. She's a professional keynote speaker for over 20 years in risk management, wellness and learning design. She's been featured in Fast Company, was on the TEDx stage in Detroit and just inspires our audiences to live, lead and build leverage through her framework and also go deeper, to grow faster, which is another method that she has. So she helps leaders uncover the root causes of burnout, conflict and misalignment which is what we talk about today to really find solutions to help them. So you're going to hear some tools and resources from her, some that I've actually never heard of before. So I'm excited to the Confident Podcast. I'm so excited to be chatting with you today.
Speaker 1:Yes, thank you for having me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so we're going to really just dive right into it. I have lots of questions for you, and so I think one of the coolest things is I've already shared with everybody a little bit about you your bio, your background but I would love for you to kind of set the tone of I mean, you're pretty prestigious now. You've done amazing things. I look up to you, so many people look up to you, but no one gets there without challenges and without struggling with confidence, and so I'd love to just kind of set the tone of like hey, where did you struggle with confidence when you were starting, maybe, your journey, personal or professional? And like what are some of the things that you've done to like get to a better place, that you're more confident in?
Speaker 1:All right, well, I have to just say right off the bat that when your parents name you princess, I have to just say right off the bat that when your parents name you princess, they already put a very lofty expectation on what your life needs to look like. So I got the pressure right out of the gate in life. But, honestly, one of the most critical turning points in my confidence was in my very first career, when I graduated from college. I started my career out in the insurance brokerage industry at one of the world's largest brokerage firms and people there were extraordinarily talented, they were very smart, competent and it seemed like confidence was teeming from everywhere and I was trying to fit into that world as a young woman born and raised on the West side of Detroit, very proud of that, I had gone you know, obviously gone to college and lived abroad, and so I had confidence coming into the workplace. But I got challenged in that because I had a leader, challenge my sense of belonging. I had an executive leader, a woman leader.
Speaker 1:Ask me one day, literally verbatim, how did you get here, how did you find out about this career? Because you don't look like a risk manager career, because you don't look like a risk manager, and in that moment I had this internal happening where it almost felt like my insides shattered, and I don't know that I had ever really felt that before, been that present to that type of feeling, and now that I'm a bit more mature, wiser, I know now that I was just very triggered in the moment. And in that exact same moment I look over to her, I'm crumbling and cracking on the inside, and she was very casually going about the work that she was doing in this conference room. We were setting up for a meeting and I just I had to pause because I literally felt myself boiling and I didn't know if I was going to cry or scream or what was going to happen. But I felt this shift happening internally and something happened to me, um, lisa, in that this moment I almost can't explain, but something came over me where it was just a realization that I was either going to lean into the moment and find out more or give away power that this woman was not even asking me for. She wasn't asking for my power, nor did she deserve it. And so I just paused, I took a deep breath, I calmed down, and without really being trained to do so. So I consider that a gift from God, honestly, that moment, and I just leaned into her and I said what do you mean by that? And she looked almost startled and she said nothing. And she looked almost startled and she said nothing. And it was such an odd moment. And then I just realized, as she stood there and she said nothing, and she like shrugged it off almost, and I said to myself I would have given her everything. And she said her words meant nothing. So I looked back at her and I said you know, I take it as just that, nothing. And so I did not answer her question, I didn't answer her, I continued to set up the room and I exited.
Speaker 1:Six months later. I left the job, though, because she lost something in that moment she lost my confidence in her and she lost my trust. But that moment is the most pivotal moment and I've spoken about it many times on stage on what shifted my confidence into high gear, because I just recognized that I was about to give away something that she had not asked for. And now some people listening to this might say she knew exactly what she was doing. She was trying to make you feel that way.
Speaker 1:No, I don't know that that's inside of her head. All I can do is confront the moment. Don't know that that's inside of her head. All I can do is confront the moment, give her an opportunity and space to respond. She responded and she said it meant nothing, and so I just took it as that and I let her stand in that moment and I kept my confidence. I kept what my parents had already poured into me up until that point. For 24 years I kept the confidence that was instilled by my education, by my travels, by my degrees and by my sense of self-worth that just comes from my Lord and Savior. I stood in that and I kept it all and I decided never to give it away again and I'm just grateful now that that happened at 24.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. And now you get to share that story with individuals who probably have been feeling that way too right. Like we all have that moment. I like, as you're talking, I'm picturing myself sitting in that conference room getting defensive, shutting down. Like those are moments at the age of 24 where that's very easy to do, because you're taking this word from a woman that's, you know, your leader. Yes, and their words mean a lot. At that age, words matter.
Speaker 1:Words matter, they matter. I mean, a word can shatter you. It can shatter you or it can build you up, but really you're the determining factor, always, always, always. It doesn't feel like that when you're triggered and when you're at that heightened sense of arousal and awareness. It doesn't feel like you have control, but you absolutely do, and that's what people have to tap into. That's how you keep your confidence.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and being able to pause, like you said, and ask the right questions. I think that that's where people struggle a lot, just when it comes to like triggers, right, and stress, and we let all of this kind of build up and sometimes we explode or we completely shut down right and we allow someone's like I talk a lot about the spotlight effect and so it's like well, and really like then we think about that person's been thinking about us and talking about us and because of one thing that they said, but in reality they've moved on with their life. Clearly she meant nothing with her words. She moved on so fast, she moved on.
Speaker 1:That was it. I know, and I noticed that about her. I have to acknowledge that I think it was easier for me to keep my confidence when it was challenged in that moment because I already had been built up. Now I try to sometimes, you know, put myself in the shoes of a person who didn't have the parents or the peers that poured into them, didn't have the academic success or accolades, and I wonder sometimes now, how would I address, how do I help a person in the work that you do every day? How do you build up confidence in a person that is really starting from zero I mean, or less right, Some people starting from a negative Totally and trying to get to zero as a baseline. It is a challenge. It's a real challenge and it impacts business, family, communities and everything in our world. So this is a really critical topic.
Speaker 2:And I, as you were talking, like the one thing I was thinking about as I put myself in Lisa, 24 year old, right, like I'm 10 years older now and I think about my growth. I was that person that didn't have the confidence in that that boardroom. I never would have asked that question. I would have got in my head. I would have taken their words so seriously I don't belong, okay, don't belong, like, so, should I find a new career, I'd probably go home and look at new jobs Like I'm. I'm telling myself all these things because I know where I was at at the age of 24.
Speaker 2:But I think the good thing is is like, once you have that moment of like no, I don't want that anymore that's when the light bulb goes off. But I always tell people like I feel like the universe gives us the same lesson over and over again until we learn it. And I was just working with a coaching client on that and I said I feel like this lesson keeps coming up a lot and their eyes just like got big and they're like yeah, and I said so that means I think it's time to like learn from it and do something, or it's going to keep coming up Right, and I think, too, like you might've had another conference setting like that had you not, in that moment, spoke up. So it's like just learning from those moments too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's. I will say that being a quick study and being able to take experiences and act on, act on them and put things into perspective is a superpower for me. When people say things to me, I don't run it through. You know, I don't run it past my childhood. I don't have it question every part of my being, my intellect, my integrity, all these things. I've set up almost a filter for myself.
Speaker 1:What is this person saying? And I don't even really try to assess their motive. Just what are they saying? And if I can't answer that question for myself really quickly, I ask them what do you mean by that? What do you mean? What are you trying to accomplish? Because I've learned how to just get after it, like get to the bottom, the bottom line, really fast so you can decide for yourself what you're going to do. Right, you know you can decide. And, like I said, seldom do people understand the gravity of their words and a lot of times they're acting without full intention. They're just talking, they're just saying. They're sometimes acting on bias. We've been talking about this for years now. They are just being themselves and they're trying to do the best that they can and sometimes they make mistakes and you just move on from those moments. You give people the space to have those types of moments, you step up to the plate and then you just have to collect yourself and be able to move forward.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love that and I kind of want to segue into something we already talked about, where you brought up your trigger, and I want to just like take us to a moment of like burnout, stress triggers, conflict that's a big one that I seem to have.
Speaker 2:Like people come to a lot with my clients and all of that can mess with your confidence, it can mess with you as a leader. When you, as a leader, are feeling all of those things it's really hard to lead, people as a leader are feeling all of those things it's really hard to lead. People so like, when someone's having this moment like you can share, we can go category, category, or if maybe you just have a lump sum, like I have found that when people don't take care of these issues, they are drained, they're not productive, they're not happy, and then it kind of has that ripple effect, so like, and then it kind of has that ripple effect, so like, how does one A recognize it, b focus and shift their energy? And like, where do you even start? Because, like I know, when I was burnt out, I'm like, I know I'm burnt out, I know I need to be doing things, but I'm so drained right now that I can't even like get up from bed.
Speaker 1:Yes, up from bed. Yes, well, I absolutely love talking about this stuff because those you know our ability to identify and cope with stress, identify sources of burnout, which is really a form of chronic stress, let's call it what it is and our ability to navigate the endless amount of conflicts that we will incur in life, are just all ways that, as leaders, we learn to live, lead and build leverage. These are all very foundational skills that you have to have to navigate any part of life, and you're right in the way you've even phrased the question is how do you begin to identify them? Well, it starts with your own self-awareness, them. Well, it starts with your own self-awareness, not just being in tune with the body, but being in tune with your mind and being in tune with what you believe about yourself. Every single thing.
Speaker 1:When it comes to being human, we love to center ourselves. Even if that sounds like a bad thing to some people, we just naturally do. We center ourselves a lot when it comes to challenges and problems, when somebody does something or offends us or grieves us, we always want to know what did I do, how did I show up, what did I say? And so that centering, that natural ability of ours to just center ourselves. We need to start doing that when it comes to identifying our triggers. Right, and that's they come from how we see ourselves. Right. What are our agreements? I talked about this a couple of years ago in my first TEDx talk. We talked about this concept that agreements are familial and societal rules that govern and shape our lives, the way we behave, the way we see ourselves, the way we see others, and it becomes the paradigm in which we operate. And so the first part of recognizing your triggers is just really sitting down and assessing and writing out who are you, what do you believe about yourself, what do you believe about your abilities, what gaps do you have? And you can be honest about that. You know there's things that I do great at and there's things that I'm not so great at. What are those things? And really understanding yourself and the circumstances you put yourself in can be a source of how you identify your triggers.
Speaker 1:I'll give you a perfect example. The first time I hit a stage and I heard them say, you know, coming to the stage, blah, blah, blah, blah, bio and said you know, princess Castleberry, I was triggered. You know why? I never had an experience like that, I thought I was prepared, I knew what I wanted to say. But getting out there, there's no way to fully prepare for the unknown, and so my triggers became what if people don't understand the concepts? What if nobody laughs at my jokes? What if people don't understand the concepts? What if nobody laughs at my jokes? What if people don't connect the dots? What if I don't get the applause? How am I going to feel it's being able to take all of that information in and say, okay, I recognize that that's a sore spot for me.
Speaker 1:So if one of these sort of worst case scenarios happens, having a plan for what am I going to do about it? Am I going to be able to push through and how do I push through? For me, very simply, I breathe. I breathe. I need to take a moment, moment to moment action. Let me just meet this moment, right, let me just meet the moment. That's a big part of dealing with triggers. The other part you mentioned earlier your ability to just pause and just size up what's happening in me. What am I thinking Is what the person said or did? Is it challenging my ego? Is it challenging my knowledge, my skillset? What am I feeling in this moment. Do I need to ask for help? Do I need to be quiet? Do I need to just be honest and say I don't know? It's getting to the truth, because the truth is in the trigger. You know, if you understand what's triggering you and you're honest about it, you can respond to meet that moment.
Speaker 2:So yeah, so I'm hearing you say imposter syndrome a little bit can kind of come up as a trigger a little bit.
Speaker 1:I don't. I got to address that. I don't per se I don't believe in imposter syndrome as a real thing. Literally, this is my opinion.
Speaker 1:The world, according to Princess, is nobody is an imposter. They are literally just triggered right when you have those feelings of I don't belong here, I'm not smart enough to be here, all the things that come up when we talk about imposter experience or imposter syndrome. It really just ties back to what I said. It ties back to the fact that you believe something about yourself that may or may not be true. Let's say you're in a situation your boss calls you out in the meeting, asks you to give your debrief on a particular topic, and you're caught off guard and you start to crush and shrink down and you're going through these feelings of being triggered and feeling like an imposter, I don't belong here because I didn't know the answer on the spot to a question.
Speaker 1:Well, there's only really two options Either you knew the answer but you didn't feel prepared and you just felt caught off guard in the moment, or you genuinely didn't know the answer. Either way, the truth is you just need to solve for that issue. Calling yourself an imposter or putting all the labels on has nothing, it's not productive, it's not helpful and in that whole that language that we use, imposter syndrome really comes from a very small study conducted in 1978 with a very small group of women, and that study was blown up for lots of reasons. I won't get into all of them, but the study results were blown out of proportion and when people actually take time to read the abstract of the original study, the writers admit that the women that were dubbed as dealing with imposterism or imposter experience were actually more than likely experiencing the ramifications of stereotyping, gender stereotyping, challenges with their own upbringings and having incurred bias in the workplace. And so it even says it in the original study.
Speaker 2:So I'm sorry that's a little bit of a tangent. No, you're good, you're good. I love the word imposter syndrome because I think it's a good place to start.
Speaker 1:That's why I say that yeah.
Speaker 2:So I love the concept of thinking of it in a different way, right, and providing people with a different viewpoint of what it actually could mean for certain people.
Speaker 2:And when people are saying it, going deeper, right, Like I think sometimes we can also use we use words that might not always go with what we're trying to say either you know, so when you say all of this, so what I was picturing was, as you were talking about your experience, when you were talking about, like, the triggers of boardroom, of someone feeling that way or stepping out on stage, one of the things that came up for me was, okay, what if someone knows those things about themselves?
Speaker 2:They're pausing, they're reflecting, or they're just not ready to do that work yet, right. And so I've had people that I've seen in my career that have been like I know this about myself, but I need to get through X, y, z before I'm going to address it, or I have this going on in my life right now that that's coming second, and I hear that a lot, and it can be an excuse, it can be whatever we want to call it, but what would you say to those people? Because I think that there's a lot of us out there that are like, yeah, I know that I'll deal with that later versus dealing with it right now.
Speaker 1:There's this concept and this idea that when we become aware of something, then it's time to work on it, that we have to map out this strategic plan for how we're going to work on it, and as if we have to, like excavate something and dig it all out. Here's the reality, to make it real simple, and I pray this is not an oversimplification for people but the moment that you become aware, that is the moment and the height of your choice. We are all born with the power of choosing so many things, and then there's other things that are completely outside of our control, largely our identity, the language that we're born into, the socioeconomic status. There's so much outside of our control. But the minute you are self-aware enough to notice that something is off inside of you, that, uh, this person said something to me and I really wish I had the confidence to say something back. I'm going to work on that. The minute that you get you know, something is brought to your awareness that you know you're constantly downing yourself. The minute you become aware and you're like yes, I know that, I know, I do that. I really need to work on that. No, you need to decide. Are you going to continue to give away your confidence and power, knowing what you know in this moment. Do you know how long you're going to live?
Speaker 1:Because people that think that, oh, I'm just going to work on it, what they're really saying is I can predict the future and I have so much time left here to make an impact that I can shelve my problems and work on them later. I could shelve that part of my confidence and build it up at another time. I'm a right here, right now, type of a woman and I like to address these challenges head on, because there is no time like the present. There is no time like the present and if we really think about what life is, this is the only moment we actually ever have.
Speaker 1:The past would not exist without language and our ability to stylize it and write about it and bring it into context in the present moment. And we do not have a future. We wish and we hope and we pray for it, but it doesn't exist until you're there and then it's the present. So, making the decision that I'm going to start in this moment I'm going to say something or, again, I'm going to be quiet and I'm going to table that for myself and say I want to say something. I don't have all the words, but I'm aware. Now, and from this day forward, I'm never going to pretend that I'm not aware of what just happened inside of me. That's what I would say to them. I'm not aware of what just happened inside of me. That's what I would say to them.
Speaker 2:I love that and I also think like what? What came up for me during that was even like if you decide in that moment to not do something about it, like if you're going to reflect on it, like it's, it's okay to reflect, but like, at the same time, like you're either going to do something or not. It's your choice, right. But it's like kind of back to what I was saying earlier. There are some times where the universe keeps giving you the same lesson over and over again because we're not making the changes either. You know when things might keep coming up and we might keep getting frustrated because we're not making those changes. Taking care of your health isn't always easy, but it should at least be simple. That's why, for the last three to four years, I have been drinking AG1 every day, no exceptions. It is just one scoop mixed in with water once a day, every day, and it makes me feel energized and ready to take on the day. That's because each serving of AG1 delivers my daily dose of vitamins, minerals and probiotics plus more. It's a powerful, healthy habit. That's also very simple, and I like simple. I like to drink AG1 first thing in the morning and that is what is also recommended. I fill up my shaker with extra cold water, add one scoop of AG1, shake it up and I'm ready to go. If I'm running short on time and can't mix my AG1 before heading out, I'll grab a travel pack, and that has been so helpful for all of my travel times. Each is an individual serving of AG1 that's easy to mix on the go, helping ensure I get my daily nutrition, no matter what. If there's one product I would recommend to elevate your health, it's AG1. And that's why I've been partnering with them for so long. So if you want to take ownership of your health, let's start with AG1. Try it and get a free one-year supply of vitamin D3 plus K2 and five free AG1 travel packs with your first purchase, exclusively at drinkag1.com. Slash theconfident. Again, that's drinkag1, slash theconfident, so check it out.
Speaker 2:One of the things I am most proud of is how I continue to put personal development at the forefront of my growth. I know this is something many people struggle with, because we don't always know where to start. There's almost too much information out there. It can become overwhelming and requires research to ensure credibility. I also want something that's accessible anytime and that I can pick back up where I left off. Not only has this been my personal experience, but I've had countless individuals reach out to me for resources. This is why I'm so excited to share with you Lead Within, an online membership platform created for adults, parents and teenagers.
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Speaker 1:And I will talk candidly about why some people can't. You asked a question earlier about burnout, and burnout is actually a form of chronic stress and it is more serious. When a person is in burnout right, their brains have moved beyond what we call honeymoon stress. Honeymoon stress is that level of stress that you incur just when you're starting something new, you're launching a brand new podcast and you're growing your own business and you feel all those jitters. That's honeymoon right Onset of stress. Right when you get the onset of stress, you take on that new client, that new task. That's a little bit out of your comfort zone and you start to feel it a little bit and you're like, okay, I got to stretch out, I need to have some different resources, I got to put some processes in place. I'm going to have somebody assist me with this and put a little team in place. I'm going to use some automations and scheduling. I can deal with that Onset.
Speaker 1:When people start getting into chronic stress which leads to burnout, burnout is advanced chronic stress. Something different happens inside the body. You're not just dealing with triggers. When you're dealing with burnout, the size, structure and function of your brain literally starts to change and your neural pathways literally start to change, and that's where we move beyond what we were talking about. Just do it, go make the change in the moment, because if a person allows themselves to slip into burnout, they might not be able to just recognize it, because now they are behaving and thinking from their fear center versus behaving and thinking from the frontal lobe, where rational decisions happen. But the beautiful thing about it all is that there is a way to repair that. There's a way to repair your body, a way to repair your mind and strengthen yourself, and the solutions are more practical than people think they are.
Speaker 2:So now I have to hear what you think are some of the solutions, because I was like, as you were talking, I literally was picturing myself it's been about six to seven years ago where I was in chronic burnout, like chronic stress burnout. You couldn't even get me to probably make a decision at that moment because I literally had it's not even decision fatigue. It was literally like my body I had frozen, I was on bedrest, you know. And so when people are in these stages, right, what are some practical tools that they can utilize?
Speaker 1:I always have people look at the sources of their burnout and start with asking yourself is my burnout internal or external Right? When it's internal Right and it's internal and it's in your control, it's in your control. There's usually things that you can do. Some very practical things you can do, like you know, journaling, addressing the situation with the person right. If you're experiencing burnout in a job per se and you know it's because of how the work is organized or the volume of work, those become conversations you can have. Those become career decisions. Maybe it's time to move that type of thing right. But when burnout is outside of your control, which is what tends to happen to people, more often than not they feel like I can't control these circumstances. That's when you have to seek a solution that is more holistic and, I believe, a bit more physical. I use a practice called progressive muscle relaxation. Have you ever heard of it?
Speaker 2:I haven't. Maybe I have, I just have never put that word with it. Yeah, it's there.
Speaker 1:You know again and I'm looking at it from the perspective of when you can't self-care and when you can't journal and that doesn't make sense or when you can't shift workloads and all these things then you have to just move into a state where you're just going to say I'm going to prioritize and protect my body and my brain function above all else, and so using a technique like progressive muscle relaxation could help. And so PMR has been out for more than a hundred years. Actually, it's very well studied and documented, even by our own government. So there are studies through the National Institutes of Health that basically prove that progressive muscle relaxation relieves the symptoms of depression, anxiety, insomnia, headache and, in some cases, even cancer pains.
Speaker 1:It's extraordinary and it is essentially. It's a series of deep breathing combined with mindfulness. So you're thinking about your breath, so you're inhaling and exhaling very deeply and you're getting connected with your breath, and at the same time, one muscle group at a time, you're contracting and you're noticing what stress feels like, and then, as you exhale, you release and you just notice with your mind what relief feels like. And you do this one muscle group at a time. So it's called progressive muscle relaxation contract release, inhale, exhale, and this entire experience takes about 15 minutes. You don't even have to do it every day, but what happens over time is so, can you tell? I'm like so excited about this.
Speaker 2:No, I love this. Yeah, yeah, this is great.
Speaker 1:What happens over time is that your body builds up a new muscle memory and so when you get triggered, instead of you having to remember to relax, relate, release and breathe and do all these things, your body will trigger your parasympathetic nervous system. It will trigger a relaxation response for you because your body will start to sense oh, I feel this unnecessary tension in your hands, in your shoulders, in your back, your chest, abdomen, your thighs and toes. Even your body will start to act like the sensors going off in your vehicle and start to alert you and when you feel those little random flashes of might feel like a little bit of pain and tension, that's your cue to breathe and even if you don't remember to, your body will trigger it. It is the most extraordinary tool I've used to combat burnout.
Speaker 1:There's so many ways to combat burnout, but leaders need to be thinking, lisa, about their individual sources, how their own behaviors, how their own mindsets, their upbringing, their identity really create a whole host of behaviors that push them into burnout. We look at everything today. We keep looking at everything and pointing to the outside world. My job is doing this, my boss is doing that, the workload is this, my colleagues are doing that Most of this comes from how we see ourselves and that filter that we have over our own minds. And if we get more in tune and in love with who we are, we can remedy so many things. I really believe that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I really do too. One word that kept coming up for you is, or coming up when you were talking, is that self-awareness piece and the more that you are aware of yourself, who you are, all of the things that you bring, and also what your triggers are and how you get defensive or your feedback, and all of that has to do with leadership.
Speaker 1:The truth is in the trigger and the trigger is in the truth. Tell the truth. If you know that being confronted by somebody and called out in a group bothers you, be prepared for it and be prepared to say something in the moment to address it. You have to start just being honest. If you know you're walking into a client meeting and you didn't read the briefing and you don't really understand your client's issue, that's not imposter syndrome when they ask you a question and you feel flustered. Your client's issue. That's not imposter syndrome. When they ask you a question and you feel flustered.
Speaker 1:That's lack of preparation, 100%. Yeah, when you have a parent, somebody you love dearly, that might have hurt you with their words or might have even physically hurt you, because we're not going to pretend that we don't live in a society where abuse is prevalent Mm-hmm. If that's happened to you, we have to be truthful about it and we have to know that all of that comes with us in every moment, whether we're talking about the work that we do in our personal lives, out in the broader community and business world. That stuff is a part of us and we just have to be honest enough about it. And then in those moments decide are we going to take action, are we going to do something and put your remedies in place? And you just keep going until you get it right.
Speaker 2:I love that. So that's actually a great way to like, kind of like close out. But I have one last question that I'm going to ask you because I love hearing just like from different perspectives. So my question for you is so, in this past week, how have you been kind to yourself?
Speaker 1:In this past week I have been incredibly kind to myself by just taking a day of rest. I spent Monday of all days the first day of the week, first day of the work week not working at all and I just spent the day literally in my pajamas. I did decide to take one call. I took a call via Zoom and I told the person I was talking to this was a no camera day for me, and I didn't explain it, I just did it. I took the license, I took the agency and the authority because I knew I was trying to relax, and I did. I achieved a degree of relaxation, right, I was just able to calm myself down, and that is so important. I have undoubtedly stressed myself out and pushed myself in my speaking and mothering my children, being a wife, all the things, and I think that sometimes the biggest thing that you can do is just take that moment and say that I deserve rest and even if you can't get a full day, take what you can.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that's so I love that. I'm glad you were kind to yourself this week.
Speaker 2:So, Princess, thank you so much for being on the podcast and sharing so many amazing tips. I feel like when we put the show notes together, I'm going to be like bam, bam, bam, all of these amazing little nuggets, and so I know our audience took away so many great things, and so just to kind of like end. You know, there's there's truth in the triggers, right? There's just being honest with ourselves, choosing ourselves and then, in in the moments where we're triggered, we get to make decisions. You know, we, we get to make the decision and and a lot of things too. I think it's always I think I say this on the podcast almost every time it's like we have to go internal sometimes. Right, we have to go internal and stop blaming everybody else, sometimes as well. So, thank you so much for being on the podcast and just continue to shine and just make the world a better place, because it's better with you. So thanks, thank you, thank you, so thanks, thank you, thank you. Thank you so much for tuning into today's podcast with Princess. I just loved hearing her thoughts, challenging a little bit of my thoughts about imposter syndrome and looking them at a little bit of like, what are our triggers? That kind of come up, which was an interesting perspective thinking about how there's truth in our triggers, how we can make decisions in the moment and when we delay things, how we think we just have this abundant amount of time which, you know, we can all have our different thoughts on that but really, just in the moment, making a decision, am I going to choose to make a change or am I going to stick in the ways that I'm built in? And then we also heard a few different ways that you can get out of chronic stress as well. As someone who had burnout myself, I really resonated with some of the things she was saying. I also so wish I would have had some of those tools when I was struggling, even when I was at my lowest point, but I'm so proud of myself for building myself up and getting back to where I need to be, and I hope that, as you're listening to this starting the year 2025 off, that you're seeing all the things that you're capable of as well. So, as I always say on every podcast, I am here to support you. I want you to think of me as family, as someone that is your close friend, who you're jumping on when you listen to these podcasts to just listen to a friend, hear my advice or just learn some new tools, and so, as always, my coaching is available to all of you. I have a few more spots for 2025 available as well.
Speaker 2:As you know that one of the best tools that you can give yourself is our Lead Within platform. So in the show notes, our Lead Within platform, so we in the show notes, you will see the code, which is we're 50% off to your first month of using it, and this has so many tools to help you with growth mindset, to help you with burnout, leadership, confidence, self-esteem. The list goes on. I think we have over 14 different topics already on the platform, and we're just growing to help all of you guys, so we love hearing from our audience how it's helped us. We've heard from many of you that you're utilizing it more and more, and we just love it. I think we've quadrupled the number of individuals that have been part of the platform, and we want you to be part of that too, because it really really does work. So, as I always say on every podcast, continue to spread love and kindness to everybody that you meet, including yourself, and have a great day.
Speaker 2:Thank you for joining me on this episode of the Confident Podcast. If today's episode resonated with you, head over to leadconfidentlyorg for today's show notes, along with discounts to our services. Don't forget to hit the subscribe button, leave a review and follow us on Instagram and YouTube at the Confident Podcast. Your feedback means the world to me and it helps more people discover the show. And hey, if you're feeling inspired to dive deeper, let's connect. You can find me on Instagram at Lisa Tarkington official. Drop me a message and let's explore how I can support your journey to confidence and leadership. Remember, you have the power to choose confidence every single day. Keep showing up, keep striving and keep believing in your potential. I'm cheering you on and I'll see you next time.
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