I recently recorded a podcast with my friend Mitch Hull of the 3D Institute. After we got done, we talked for a long time. He shared with my his new (ish) view on Stress. We often tell people that stress is a bad thing, and we need to find ways to control it and calm down. Mitch suggested this was not necessarily true. He took it as far as saying that he has asked athletes if they are nervous before a big competition, and if they are not, that he didn’t want them to compete! Now some of this was tongue and cheek…. he was trying to prove a point that stress is ok. In fact, it is good because it shows that something is important to us.

A TED Talk by Dr. Kelly McGonigal changed his view….and now mine on stress. In her Ted Talk “How to Make Stress Your Friend” (video below), she challenged the view that stress is harmful. Instead, how we perceive stress is how it can be harmful…or positive!

Some key takeaways from her talk:

· If we believe stress is harmful, it is. She shared about a study of 30,000 adults that found that people who experienced stress had a 43% change of Dying. HOWEVER, this was only if they believed stress was harmful.

· If they didn’t view it as harmful, they actually had a lower risk of dying. Reframing stress is important. She suggested that we should view stress as our body’s way of preparing us to perform. Stress increases our heart rate, which delivers more oxygen to the brain which in turn sharpens our focus and boosting. So…

· Instead of telling ourselves to calm down in stressful situations, McGonigal suggests we should tell ourselves that the body is just helping us rise to the challenge in front of us.

I will dive deep with Mitch in a future podcast, but this felt too good not to share a little bit.This information and research surprised me and is a significant mind shift for me.But I truly believe that stress can be an opportunity for Growth and beneficial to performance

Here is the TED Talk:

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Rob Ramseyer Dr. Rob Ramseyer

Dr. Rob Ramseyer is the Co-Founder of the Impactful Coaching Project and Vice President of Athletics and Strategic Expansion at Friends University, overseeing 24 teams and serving on the President’s Cabinet. Under his leadership, the department has achieved significant success across all areas, earning him honors such as the KCAC Director of the Year and the NACDA Athletic Director of the Year. He resides in Wichita, KS, with his wife, Charlie, and their four children.