Sprinting to Success is the podcast show where Esmie Lawrence interviews women in high stress positions to understand how the manage and deal with stress so that it doesn’t over come them. She recently invited me to sit down with her on the show. Listen to Sprinting to Success.

Olympic Athlete, Amazing Lady

I met Esmie last year at the Profiting from Podcasts event. I remember talking with her when we first met and being impressed. She’s a former Olympic champion, so cool. As a kid I kept telling my parents I was going to swim in the 88 olympics. I didn’t stick with it in the end, but when I meet such athletes I aways am in awe. 

She’s also worked in the healthcare industry which is in part what led her to start her current business. She’s had a first hand view of stress endured by medical workers. She strives to help her colleagues and others, especially women, manage stress at work and home in a better way.

Stress in My Life

You may have heard me talk about it in other interviews or read it on other blogs I’ve posted, I took went through a difficult time due to stress. In fact I went through a burnout. It sounds silly to say it but in many ways I feel as if it crept up on me. I noticed something was off, for quite a while but couldn’t quite put my finger on it. I was also ever the optimist, saying “It’ll get better when…”. 

But it didn’t, it got worse at first. To the extent that I started having health problems for the first time in my life. It was, as one can only see in retrospect, exactly what I needed. While I could have done without the health challenges they are what led me to where I am. 

In my talk with Esmie I share what has worked for me in my healing journey as well as what I do now to manage my own stress. I’ve learned over the past 4 years that it’s not the stress itself that’s the issue. It’s when it becomes chronic that it’s a problem. I suffered for about 3 years before I realised what was going on. Of course it built up over time. At the beginning I was “handling things better”. As the stress continued for months on end, it became chronic.

It’s What You Do that Matters

There will always be stress in life. That’s why what Esmie is doing is so important. We aren’t taught in school how to manage stress, if we’re lucky we have parents who raise us that get it and teach us those skills. For most of us we are left to figure it out as we go along.

One of the main lessons I’ve learned is that I have, to varying degrees, the ability to manage what I react to and how in this world. I can choose to let things stress me out or not. If I can’t control my initial reaction, then I can control how much I suffer after the fact, by being aware of what’s rolling around mentally in my head. 

Yes, of course this also relates to your pricing. For many of you pricing stresses you out. Fear of being told “No, that’s too expensive.” can make you feel stress as well. Get more comfortable with your pricing and how to speak about it and the stress starts to melt away.

Enjoy the interview. If you’ve got questions or comments head over to my Facebook group, join and start the discussion.