Our three panelists in this episode of Scaling Up Insights are Lisa Ridley, Cheryl Biron, Kristin McLane. Lisa is a Scaling Up Coach and focuses on facilitating positive change with her entrepreneurial clients. Cheryl started her career in corporate before having an ‘entrepreneurial fit’ and starting her own business. Kristin has been an entrepreneur for the last 24 years in the software industry.

Let’s talk about stress management! Lisa believes a lot of it comes down to mindset and how we approach upcoming problems. Cheryl believes it’s important to ask, ‘What’s the worst that can happen?’ Get it all out there and then reframe/reason with yourself on different ways to solve the problem.

When Bill was faced with possible bankruptcy, his financial advisor told him that there is no such thing as debtor’s prison, it helped him relax and see the bigger picture. Kristin noticed that athletes use stress to help them get better at what they do. Stress isn’t seen as a negative thing, but a positive. It’s almost like you have to use stress to get to the next level.

The truth is, how do you see stress? In a study of 30,000 people on stress management, if you think stress is a bad thing, then you are 43% more likely to die. If you see stress as something that is not harmful to you, your chances are drastically lowered. That’s how powerful our mindset is in deciding whether something is good for us or not. Stress can be used as a useful tool and is an important part of how we navigate conflict.

Lisa shares an example. A large number of the population is afraid of public speaking. Before you go on stage to speak, you can tell yourself two things. That you hate this and that you’re nervous/scared of doing this or you can say that these emotions you’re feeling right now are your body’s way of energizing you. You can redirect this nervous energy into focus.

There was a study that used these two different public speaking groups, one that was scared and the other that was energized, the audience believed the ones who used this fear in a positive way performed better, despite being just as scared.

Interview Links:

Kristin on LinkedIn

The Upside of Stress : Why Stress

220: Scaling Up Insights — Coach Panel with Lisa Ridley, Cheryl Biron, and Kristin McLane

Scaling Up Business with Bill Gallagher