CM 276: Mary Anderson on Success without Stress
50:01 Share

If you make your inherent worth but holding into external validation, you will live with chronic anxiety.

Welcome to curious minds at work on your host, gale Allen. We often assumed that stressing anxiety of the Price we pay for success, yet these feelings often to burn out and self doubt to debilitating outcomes that can get in the way of the very achievements were striving for. This is a pattern psychologist mary Anderson often sees in her high achieving clients.

They're very successive, left them so scar that they can enjoy IT, let alone build on IT. The good news is that Anderson is developed a set of research bat strategies to get us unstuck. Anderson shares these stories and strategies in her book, the happy, higher, cheaper eight essentials to overcome anxiety, minute stress and energize yourself for success without losing your edge.

I walked away from the book and our conversation with tools to rethink some of my own limiting beliefs. I bet you will, too. Before we start one quick ask, if you like the podcast, please take a moment to live rating on itunes or wherever you subscribe your feedback since a strong signal to people looking for their next podcast.

And now here's my interview with mary Anderson. Mary Anderson, welcome to the podcast. IT is great to have you on gal.

Thank you so much. I'm so excited and honor to be here today with you.

What makes for an unhappy high achiever? What do you see when high achiever s first come to your office to work with you?

What I first see when people would come in to my office is these driven, determined, brilliant people. Most of my patients, um I work out of boston in the financial district. So I work with a lot of high achieving professionals of doctors, lawyers, people in finance consultants, and they would come in, but as they would know, come and sit on my coach in the office and drop the flow, is looking for sides.

What they would describe really candidly and courageously, is that they were struggling with chronic stress and society, self doubt, perfectionism and burnout. It's not their ambition or drive that's problematic. I think that's great. The issue is a relentless pace. So it's not relate less ambition that's great, but relatabl Epace w here p eople a ren't i mplementing r egular s elf c are w hen p eople a re n ot r egularly t aking g ood c are o f t hemselves a nd p aired t hat w ith c hronic n egative s elf t ax o c hronic s elf c riticism, unhelpful thinking that's really what I see is the lack of self care and the unhelpful self talk. I think that's what really makes for an unhappy high chair before .

we just discuss some of the essentials that you provide for making the shift from unhappy to happy high achiever, which is the heart soul of your book, we need to understand some of the background that you provide. So to start, you explain that our thoughts, our feelings, our behaviors, they are interrelated. There's connection there. What is the relationship between them and why does that matter?

Yes, another great question. Um such an important one is to understand that thoughts, feelings and behaviors are directly impact each other. How are thinking about things like if i'm thinking to myself, oh, I can't wait to see my family, Julian, on saturday, how am I gonna feel i'm going to feel excited and happy if i'm doing a behavior like, curl up on my couch, you know, cozy with a book, how I going to feel, i'm going going to feel comfortable and happy and content.

If i'm feeling happy, how might I behave at work when what we know from abundant researchers that we were happy IT actually helps us be more productive, collaborate Better with co workers. So every single one of those, they directly impact each other, thoughts, feelings, behaviors. And to explain that to my patience, I often put my hands in a triangle and say, imagine their thoughts at one corner, feelings another corner, behaviors another corner, and by directional arrows in between.

So really, and thoughts, feelings, behaviors are all directly related. And the example that I give with this, one that I think really brings at home for higher, higher s is how would impact them at a job interview. And I hope a lot of patients with anxiety about job interviews and kind of just anxiety about performance in the workplace and going into a job in interview, if you are shaking the interviewer hand at a job you really want, and you think to yourself, what if I freeze up, how are you going to feel anxious, nervous? Not good, right.

And then behaviorally, how might that manifest? What you'll see is that people will be less engaged, more in their heads. They're not asking as many questions, maybe minimal eye contact, so you can see they all directly impact each other.

But what if when you're shaking the interviews hand, you think to yourself, wow, i'm so excited. I got this interview. Then how would you feel? You might feel excited and proud and even grateful to be there. And then what that would mean for your behaviors is that you would show up with energy, and you'd be asking questions and looking interested and invested. And so you can see that knowing that relationship between thoughts, feelings and behaviors is so important, because I can profoundly impact our lives professionally and personally.

There's a phrase that you use in relation to our thinking in the power of our thoughts. And it's where you shining your flashlight. It's such great question. Talk to us about that.

yes. So where are you shining your flashlight? What that means is being aware of what thought you're focusing on. So where you're shining your flashlight is basically your flashing is your attention. Where are you concentrating your attention?

Just like when you shine a flashlight in a dark rub, if you shine a flashlight to the right corner, you'll see what's illuminated in the right corner. Doesn't mean the left corners is not there, but that's gonna stay in the dark. What impacts you would be what's in the right.

If you move your flashlight to the left again, you would be able to see what's on the left. The right would stay in the dark. So what thought you focus on is what's going to impact how you feel and behave.

And there's this quote that I love by Williams, James, who was considered the father, american psychology. And he said, the greatest weapon against stress is our ability to choose one thought over another. And that's really what will, again, impact how we feel and show up in different situations.

You know, our thoughts are like these runaway trains, and they lead us to stories and assumptions. And you explain, we need to poke holes on our thinking, why is this so important? And how can we actually do IT?

Our thoughts impact our feelings? Because we believe them. We often take our thoughts as if they were facts.

But really, what's important to know is that our thoughts are not facts. They're just, they're just that they're just thoughts, right? Often they're actually based on ironist assumptions. Most interpretations are faulty beliefs, and those are actually unhelpful thoughts are what we call cognitive distortions. What can happen is when we have these unhelpful thoughts, they ratchet up our anxiety and stress.

And so what we need to do, once we identify that we're feeling anxious, which I often say start there, is often easier to identify how we're feeling and so how we're thinking. So your big signal, your red flag, to start looking at your thoughts as how you feel, right? Because your feelings and thoughts are directly impacting each other.

So if you're feeling anxious, overwhelmed, stressed out, work backwards and say, what am I telling myself right now? Where am I shining my flashlight? And then once you identify the thought that making you the most stressed out, the most anxious, then we want to ask ourselves, how is my thought not necessarily true? And it's by poking holes in that thought, by finding evidence, the facts of the situation that shows that that thought is not necessarily true is what it's going to help us stop believing that thought and say, huh that's not even true right? Um so if i'm working with someone who comes in, um this is this has happened a lot where other patient come in and say, dr, I know they just told me I have to speak in a meeting next month.

I can't do that. I am a sounds stupid. They're all going to think i'm incompetent. And so especially if they're focusing on I can do this, we start poking holes in that thought and asking them questions like how is my thought not necessarily true?

And often what I find out is that people who say I can't do this, they often actually have done that or something similar to that before. So they have direct evidence that the thing they're telling themselves they can't do, they actually have done before. So what we do is we help them pools.

And that thought of, you know, I can't I can't speak to meeting well, actually, you know, that sounds like you have done that before oh yeah, but I don't like public speaking. And so what we help them recognizes it's not that they can't do IT, it's that they don't like doing IT and that shifts them. You see how that a big difference between I can't speak at a meeting verses I don't want to or I don't like to, but you know, I can practice, i've done that before and I can do IT again.

So IT moves you for and unhelpful, that is gona keep you stuck and it's gonna catch IT up bearing on any stress. But once you poke holes in that unhelpful thought by looking for evidence that shows your thought is not necessarily true, that's where you can go into the third of the three step process I teach in my book, the heavy, higher ever. I talk about how to help people create new and improved self talk. And that's gonna a believable, more accurate thought that actually helps your feelings feel more manageable and moves you forward. So that's kind of the three step process of helping transform and unhelpful thought into a more helpful baLance that .

marry you mention cognitive distortions. And there are three big ones that you share in your book. The first is all or nothing thinking. The second is jumping to conclusions and the third is should statements. We're going to talk about all three, but i'm curious which one of these do you tend .

to see the most in your world? That's fantastic question. I would say more and more, what i've noticed is real issues around perfectionism that like .

the all or nothing thinking.

exactly. Yes, absolutely. So that really perfectionism is based on all or nothing thinking. This kind of idea, I need to be perfect or awesome of failure, I need to be perfect, or or some not valuable are lovable, and so all earn nothing.

Thinking is definitely something, I see that so pervasive with high achiever s struggling with the anxiety, because they think everything needs to be perfect. So or nothing. Thinking is thinking and absolute or extremes.

You, everything, nothing. Everyone, no one. So, you know, doctor, everything needs to be writer.

Everyone needs to be totally blown away by my project. And what IT does IT really creates tremendous pressure. So I call or nothing thinking pressure cooker thinking. Because IT just again, just wretches up the anxiety and stress, and makes people feel so tense and nervous, just terrified of making mistakes, terrified of ever appearing and competent.

And IT can really limit people, because if you're terrified of ever looking less than than the best, IT can make people really hesitant to try anything new, to take a new risks, anything they don't think they're going to immediately be adapt. Det, they're going to not even try. Also, I find when people are so terrified to make mistakes, the overwork in really inefficient ways, like they're reject things and kind of hyper focus on them, a new shop, the details, or what I call perfectionism, fuel procrastination. When high achiever s are so stuck on doing something right, they are so focused on creating a perfect product that when they are tasked with a project or presentation, they don't even start, they proclaimed because they're so afraid they're not gonna IT right or have IT turn out the way they want to. Um so I would say all or nothing thinking is such an important cognitive distortion for high chips to really watch out for and to identify and chAllenge so we can overcome them so they can be their best.

That's such a great way to to enter into one of your eight essentials. And these essentials are things that you sharing your book for overcoming stress and anxiety, things that you've already indicated, you know, think you overcome them, that makes happy, higher, cheaper, versus, you know, stressed out and anxious, higher, cheap. So one of the first ones is strive for excEllence, not perfection. So we've been talking about how a higher, cheap ers can be perfectionism. What does IT mean destroyed for excEllence and not perfection?

And how can I help us? Perfectionism limit higher, higher? S because they're terrified of making mistakes.

And so excEllence is keeping your standards high. And IT allows for high achievement and your humanity. And that IT underscores that we will make mistakes. As humans, we will make mistakes are going to happen. It's a inevitable.

We can proactively try to prevent careless mistakes, but that we don't have to fear mistakes, that we can learn from them and that they don't impact our inherent worth. And I think that's an important point where a lot of the perfectionism that i'm seeing that so rampant today. And um my work with my clients and just know when I talk with people, again, people really striving to be perfect.

What's happening i'm seeing is that they're trying myself worth to their achievements, appearance or performance. And that's really where the problems are caused because something I often tell my patients is that if you make your inherent worth, but hold into extra validation, you will live with chronic anxiety. And that's really at the heart of perfectionism, is that their worth is tied to proving themselves whether with excEllence, there's the underlying understanding that your worth is unconditional.

It's inherent. That's not up for grs that's already inherent as a human being. What excEllence really promotes is be a very best. Just understand that your best is human. So we will differ by the day, you know, if we've had a great night sleep verses, if we're dealing with jet lag.

So from helping consultants and you know they're dealing with jet lag, are they going to be at their very best like they were when they were at home and well rested? No, but they're still doing their best. They're onna still strive to be their best within that context. Or you know if you're doing with the flu or the headache of a breakup that so important for us to recognizes high achievers that were human, we have to allow for a variation of what our best will look like, but that striving for excEllence allows us to be hie achievers and human. And that's so important.

Mary, one of the things that hooks this on perfection is, and that you write about, is the comparison trap. And I think now more than ever, especially with social media, IT is so tough to remove ourselves from that. What can we do to .

overcome IT? Absolutely OK. This is such, this is such a big one that I help a lot of people with. Where are a lot of my clients are high achiever s sometimes, and they're years and thirties and are just constantly on social media.

And even though they can articulate that, they understand that it's security, highlight real that they're watching their friends and colleagues, you know, best moments. There's still something just as humans when we're seeing other people's achievements and these special moments that get really highly ted on social media that IT does impact us and IT can impact how we think about ourselves. So I think first and foremost, really acknowledging i'm just seeing the outcome.

This is not the process you people don't post pictures of themselves practicing their presentations or um you know that many hours IT took up for me, this book was something I thought of many, many years ago and have put a lot of work into but that's not usually what gets posted on social mediates. You know the graphics about the books launch and all these things. And so those are the exciting parts, but I think it's important for people to know there's so much progress along the way that needs to be made.

So I think what becomes really important is valuing both process an outcome, and that something I talk about, and that the main difference between excEllence and perfection, ism perfectionism, is so outcome oriented. It's so focused on how things appear and often on people pleasing, really just trying to meet the metric of success that other people put forward for us. But to combat that, if we choose to look at success as continual growth and learning and really being progress oriented so that growth mindset rather than just people pleasing, that's what can really help break us out of this comparison trap is, wow.

Look at how much progress i've made. So not just look how far I still have to go or look at what they've done and I haven't, but well, look at where I am today versus where I was a year ago, five years ago, ten years ago. How amazing that is. Um and I think by strategically focusing our flashlight on thoughts that help move us forward, that reminder of all of our Victories. I talk about this in the happy higher ever as well as celebrate your Victories. And why do we do that? Not to be self a grandison ing, but to help our brains remember all that we have done so that when we are looking at what other people are doing, IT doesn't intimate us or discourage us, rather inspires us to keep moving for IT and makes us excited for them because there's enough success for all of us that we don't have to compare ourselves and feel badly when we see other people's success is that we can rejoice in our own success and the success of others as well.

I wanted to reinforce one of the things you said. There's a phrase you using your book that that I has really stayed with me, which is our behaviors really matter, especially we're talking about comparing ourselves to others. Choose approach over say more about this. You've alluded to IT. You've talked about IT a little bit.

but i'd love us to go no further with IT. When we're anxious, we have a tendency as humans to avoid whatever is that causing the anxiety. So for something like public speaking, people just won't do public speaking.

And so that just reinforces the fear, right? Because, again, thought, feelings, behaviors of you do that little triangle in your mind foxman's behaviors, if you're feeling anxious about public speaking and then behaviorally you avoid IT. Are you allowing yourself any opportunity for learning that you can actually do IT no, but say you're anxious of our public speaking and you do the behavior of approach.

You actually say, you know what, next time you know the team meeting, I going to make sure that I contribute something right, even if it's just one point that you're contributing a comment, something that takes probably less than a minute even even say, but you're going to make sure that you step up and say that what that one behavior does when you're in the meeting and you talk and then you see that people are like, wow. You know, that's a great point or, well, good idea or even if they don't do anything, just the fact that you are able to do IT, guess what happens you're thinking, right, that behavior than shows you your brains as, wow, I did IT and that thought of I did IT or I did IT and got positive feedback. How's I can help you feel? It's going to help you feel Better and less anxious.

So when we do the behaviors, when we approach rather than avoid, what IT really is doing is IT providing us the opportunity to learn, to show ourselves something different. And that informs are thinking. So when we are walking into another situation, our thoughts about that situation will be different.

So the next time we walk into a meeting, we will, okay, I can do this. I've done this before. I can do this. And that thought is so powerful, but again, that only available to us if we've empowered ourselves to take action and approach rather than avoid that which we are afraid.

In this interview, marie Anderson shares research bx strategies high achievers can use to gain a healthier perspective on their lives and careers. If you'd like to gain additional insights on how to achieve high performance, check out episode two, six seven with Michael jays or or of the book the first rule of mastery. Everything that you need is already inside you and the investment to go inward, to listen and to feel.

And to be honest with your experience, of who you are, of your traumas, of your hopes and dreams, that adventure is incredibly freeing. Now let's get back to my interview with mary Anderson. And another essential is the uncertainty of life.

right? Like life is uncertain. Why does uncertainty I often feel so hard, especially for high achiever s first.

inform us. Because we care so much, I think goes, we care so much as high achiever s, we care about achieving our big lofty goals. We have so much that we're are ambitious about what to do.

And that's awesome. I think caring is great. The issue is that can then promote kind of this anticipatory anxiety.

It's called where when we don't know the outcome of something yet, we will really get anxious because we're anticipating what if what if IT doesn't go well? What if they don't like IT? Um what if the product you know doesn't do well, the marketplace, whatever IT is, we start worrying because we are so attached outcome.

And that's again where I go back to really invest in the process detached from the outcome. Now it's how achiever s we're always gonna are about the outcome, but it's about valuing both so that we're not solely focused on the outcome. We can really constructively channel our energy into the process and say, I am doing the best I can.

I am doing everything I can think to do to prepare to move myself forward. And then all we can do is stay curious to see, okay, you know, come what may i'm going to be, okay, let's see what actually happens. And that is difficult for humans because we're hardwired with the negativity bias.

So when there's uncertainty of unknowns, especially ambiguous situations, our brains are literally hardwired to go negative. Um IT was anthropologically advantageous for us to have that kind of built in negativity bias. But as high achievers, we have to recognize that's not going to help because IT just makes us interests, uh, worried.

And I can actually just stem me our forward motion. So what's really helpful is what I just call predict neutral. You know, if we're in an ambiguous situation kind of name that I don't have all the facts right now, I can't know what they're thinking.

And just by naming the fact that we're in an ambiguous situation will help us be less likely to make one of the cogan distortions of the trouble some trial factor jump ing to inclusions, right? So jumping inclusions comes in kind of two flavors. IT comes in negative fortune link and mind reading.

So negative fortune telling is when we predict that something won't turn out well even though that hasn't happened yet or mind reading, which is kind of assuming that people don't like us are responding negatively to us, where again, we don't even have any evidence kind of confirming that as fact. So we really need to be aware when we're in times of uncertainty or ambiguity to really remind her. So okay, I am met risk here of doing someone helpful thinking.

And I often tell my patients ambiguous situations are right for cognitive rs. So really right for cognitive distortions, watch out in those situations, especially situations you really care about. So walking into you know like a work review or a job negotiation, an interview for a job jumping to inclusions are really not gona help us.

They're very human. It's totally understandable. But there are strategic action ways that we can help ourselves overcome. H those cognitive stories in those moments of uncertainty.

When you point out what we can do with self talk, you give us some really great things to say to ourselves when the certainty feels big, when we are jumping to all of these different conclusions, share with us some of the lines that we could say, instead of maybe some of the things were saying to ourselves right now that are very unhelpful.

having the words that the ready can be really helpful when we're in those hard situations. Because I often find cognitive distributions are truly conscious little critters where you know we are taking things like it's not going to go well, they're not going to like me um and so having things that we know we consider to ourselves becomes freely really helpful um in those moments when we're starting to feel stressed.

So the very first thing is just stay curious. So this is a big one. A lot of my patients know like, okay, I just need to stay curious.

Lets see what happens and that's really what's gonna help people in those moments of uncertainty is let's see what happens. Let me stay curious. I can't know it's gonna happen yet.

Those are things that you can really practice saying to yourself so that you don't let your thoughts spiral into this. What if anxiety promoting kind of unhelpful thinking, that's just going to make everything feel worse? So again, in a moment of uncertainty, I can stay curious.

I can stay curious about uncertainty. Let me let's see what happens. The other part of that is, let's see what happens in come, what may.

This is another phrase I use come what may, or figure IT out again, sometimes higher cheevers almost forget that there are great problems of us, like come what may, no matter what happens, you will figure that out. So if you know the presentation doesn't go exactly as planned, you'll figure IT out. You know, you will find a way through IT with a work situation or dating situation. So let's see what happens come.

what? May you'll figure IT out if I people go on the first state that they're dreading, I like, let us see what happens come up. May, you know, maybe you ll make a new friend or if not, you're you'll get a great story out of IT and you can always keep going on more days or if it's amazing, maybe just found your person.

That's phenomenal. So let's just stay curious. So that kind of the first step, kind of a three step process.

So it's first and foremost, just stay curious about uncertainty. The next level up from there is be hopeful about possibility. And then after be hopeful about possibility, it's get excited about opportunity.

And this again is something when we're walking in into when we're walking into a bigger situation, uh, something especially that we care about. So like that job interview where people are worrying, you know, what if I freeze up? What if I fumble over my words? Think about, again, that thoughts, feelings, behaviors.

Think about how that's going to impact someone verses, if they say, you know, I don't know what's gonna happen so we want to say realistic, I would say an optimist, but I like to be real. So the reality is when you're up into a job of view, we don't know what onna happen. So we're not gonna have people say like i'm definitely going to because the truth is we don't know, but what we can say is I don't know what's gonna happen, but i'm excited about the opportunity to be here.

I'm excited about the opportunity to meet new people and to, you know, hold my interview skills. So I think that such a difference in how you're gonna feel, right in terms of the powerfully positive impact of saying i'm so excited i'm here. I'm so excited about the opportunity that I could get the job veris just kind of negativity, bias of, oh, my godness what if I sounds stupid? What if this doesn't go out? It's just going to dramatically impact how we feel and how we show up in situations.

I also like what you said, mary, which is the things we tend to worry about as we go into a situation that you are uncertain, typically are not the things we hold on to once we get through IT. And you call that post participation in eja. And it's funny that you talk about that because whenever I know people who've been through a hard situation, maybe I don't know a job search, uh, a new job at a higher level role that they were terrified of or maybe they are starting their own company, their own business. Maybe they're deciding to have a child and they have the child, all the things that they originally afraid of, that they thought we're ongoing to be these horrible things, they come out the other side and they're like, I said that, oh my god, sh like that wasn't even a thing. So it's really interesting .

that you bring that up. yes. Oh, gay, I see this for all the time and I always makes me smile because, you know, I often see patients weekly and i'll start this session and i'll say, i'm so glad you're here and I say I can't wait to hear how like how did the meeting go and you'll be like what meeting because to them, IT was a week ago and they were probably had many meetings but when they were talking to me for fifty five minutes IT was all about one particular meeting that they were really you know concerned wasn't go well or anxious about having you know to be point person on our um something that they needed to lead some important project.

Just like you're saying, whether be a job promotion or any certain thing that they're dealing with in that moment. I'm talking with them is just like their whole world and they're so worried about in the very next week, they literally can't even remember what IT is a referencing, which is amazing to me. But it's so shows and IT happens time and time again.

It's so common as humans when we're in the moment these things can feel mah, right. But then would just even a few days out of week out, we don't even remember IT. And the things that come into actually focus on being important weren't the things that we anticipate that marry.

One of the other things you encourage us to do is to create healthy connections. And I think that's one of the things that gets thrown out the window as soon as we're on this highly ambitious track to high achievement. You know, we have no time, space or energy for people in our lives who we see as maybe not part of the plan of getting where we wanted get. And yet, we need those connections because of all the other things we've been talking about. We're going to go into too much detail on this one, but tell us what we really need to take away when he comes to creating healthy connections.

Connection so important. And I think abundant research has shown that high quality relationships help us be happier and healthier. Um what I would say here gets strategic, get really strategic notice how people impact your energy, your thoughts, your feelings, behaviors.

So there are really our people, I call them easy people, that it's just easy to be around and they energize you or inspire you um or help you relaxed and laugh. I have one of my friends that have known since I was twelve, one of my best friends. I'm on the phone with her for not even five minutes and morality laughing and having a very type.

It's like how down to do issues awesome. And so we plan a phone conversation about know, we try for at least once every two weeks, probably more if we can. But once every two weeks we make sure we check in to to stay on top of we know updates of what's going on other's lives.

And it's just I always leave that phone conversation feeling so good, so happy, so glad that I talked with that that that's something that is so worth IT to make time for and doesn't added bonus. Honestly, what I usually do, I strap on my sneakers before um I call this the walk and talk. I do I you know light up the neck ers and as i'm talking with her, we talk for a good hour, sometimes two hours and I walk around, I walk around my home and it's amazing.

Girl, how many thousands of? So that's like two birds one. So i'm an efficiency loving later. I just have to be real on that one. So i'm talking with her, laughing, having fun.

And I just make sure that I keep moving throughout my apartment and thousands of steps later, i've had a great time, time with her. I've racked up a bunch of stabs. It's awesome.

And so it's really a strategic use of time because, you know, IT energizes me IT keeps me connected. I can help we help support each other through all the up and downs of life. And that's how we can make connection, do about we are busy people.

We have champ a schedule so gets strategic. You know, IT doesn't mean completely avoiding people who you know don't energize us, but IT is against their strategic. If certain people. You notice kind of drain your energy or you're feeling like you have to defend yourself or you're engaging in behaviors that you don't make free, you know, for yourself to be doing.

All patients say, you know, when I with this person, doctor, I always end up fill in the blink over eating or drink more than I want, or, you know, gossip about people I don't want to be like that. B, noticing of how people impact your behavior. And I ginst strategically optimize and maximized your time with people where you really feel energized, that moving for, that make you laughed, that inspire you.

That's what's really gonna help you up, make time for the connections, because it's gna feel good. And as humans, we tend to do what feels good. So for sustainable connection, finding those people you connect with that you feel valued and seen and understood, and that's really gonna help you a move forward to maintain healthy connection.

There's a lot more on this in your book, but I want to make sure that we bring this up, which is part of relationships with communication, and that could be with close friends, that could be with, uh, colleagues. I love what you say here. Communication can be passive.

IT can be aggressive and IT can be assertive. You choose assertive, talk to us about why assertive and talk us about what IT sounds like. And again, there's a lot in this on this in your book, but if you could just help us with some highlights.

sure. And this is something I teach a lot of people. So passive sounds like I respect you, but you don't really have to respect me.

That's passive aggressive is you will respect me, but I won't respect you. No, no one's going to like that, right? Both of those are not very helpful.

The sweet spot in the middle is a sort of communication, which is I respect you and I deserve respect you, right? And so what a sort of communication really is is being clear and direct and kind. So it's respectful and kind. And IT helps people understand what we are and are not OK with. And IT really helps facilitate high quality connection with people because people will understand us Better and they'll feel understood and respected as well.

That is really, really helpful. I think it's again one of the many powerful parts of your book. You also encourage us to really be clear about our goals, that our goals are everything, make sure they're meaningful and create your legacy. You emphasize how our goals really are our legacy. Talk about this .

is about being aware of how you use your time and energy, and really ensuring that you focus your time and energy on what is most important to you, what's the most valuable to you. So like my goal, my mission in life is to help as many people as possible. And so each day I think to myself, how am I going to honor that today? What am I gonna do to honor r that big life goal?

So which really my book, that happy high achiever, is about. That's something i'm putting out there to try to help as many people as possible um because seeing people want to want some patients want to want is amazing. But what I realized is if I really want to help as many people as possible, A A book will help me be able to do that.

So people who aren't in the boston area will be able to be helped by my strategies and scale. So that's how i'm living my goals and legacy for everyone out there to really think about what are you value, what is meaningful to you, how do you want to be remembered and to start honoring that today in simple, doable ways to make progress. However, you can ports honoring those goals.

So another one of my goals is to be healthy, right? So what does that mean? IT makes IT means that I make sure that I get some kind of physical movement exercise into my every day that's usually just in the form of walking. I love to walk.

So getting physical movement which I know will really helps me manage my stress um which is another part of being healthy and when we're under a lot of stress as high achiever s basically we're having surges of like a drink in and cortisol cortisol l the stress amount where the stress of man or a surgeon reality marinating and stressed romans I achievement scale so for me being healthy means, okay, I gotto make sure that I managed my stress so that's doing something like call and Julian laughing the phone with her it's going for walks. It's using my stressed ball that I have a here I have a nice little blue stack ball I have right now and i'm using um it's just any the way to honor your goal and create the legacy that you want for your life. Um it's being really strategic and mindful again about how you're using your time and energy as you .

are putting this book together and developing your eight essentials. Was there any one of the essentials are surprised to you or that you found yourself struggling with or find yourself struggling with the most?

That is a great question。 Um I think some one of them actually that is something that feels hard for a high to work to do is essential. Them were seven. Celebrate the Victories.

It's so funny that you set that up because when I was reading your book, that that was the one that called out to me. I don't do IT well, but your neuroscience really help convince .

me that I need to yeah, I think I think is highly ever s that someone that's like, wow, no, no, you want me to have .

fun kind of time for you for .

that because, you know, if I topic, okay, we have to work on your thinking. We ve got to work on implementing self care. People like, yes, I know, tell me after a what strategies do have to use, but then am my cool then we have to make sure that you're actually taking time out to have fun and their like wo wow the that one doesn't feel productive doctor.

But what we know is that even just by taking a few extra moments to install the memory, so in terms of that neuroscience, uh, doctor or anson does a great job explaining this is, well, hardwiring happiness talks about this where by taking in the good, by taking in the good, by really allowing ourselves to see, wow, hey, look, I did that right? I did that. I put my mind, something I worked hard.

And IT happened by taking an extra moment to what I call like, snap a picture at the summit, right? We just climbed a mountain. Whatever achievement you just accomplish, you just climbed amount.

You know, like writing this book was like my mount ever. I did IT. So what am I going to do? Just feel like, okay, great.

On to the next. And often, isn't that exactly what we do? Gale, as high achiever s, we just move right onto the next thing without really celebrating.

Wow, I did this thing. I climb b this melin, and I made IT to the summit. Let's really look around. Let's take in the air, snap some pictures, eat some snacks to celebrate and say, oh, I did this thing. And again, what we know is that's gonna that install IT to our memory.

And when are those memories of celebrations really important when we are on the next mountain climb? When we're like how I ggt na do this? When are unhelpful thinking starts coming in? And what if they don't like IT? What if the presentation doesn't go well? When we can remind ourselves and use those memories as fuel on our next adventure, our next kind of goal that we're going to be working towards causes high achiever s, there will be another goal.

But really knowing that pause, the pause to celebrate is not parrelel sis, it's not stagnation. It's really strategic. Pausing to celebrate one feels good, which we really deserve as higher drivers we deserve. And we actually know from abundant research, happiness fuel success.

So when we allow ourselves to take in those good memories and really just allow ourselves to enjoy a moment of success in celebration, that does help us feel happier and that will feel less forward and make us even more productive and creative and resilient in the future. So I would say, even for myself, as all these amazing things are happening, i'm trying to remind myself in these amazing moments were literally go like dreams are coming true. I like dream are coming.

Sure where, like my book is being polling among these amazing podcast, like speaking with you right now and meeting these amazing people around the country where i've been able to do um speaking events and then I am trying to really remember be in the moment, mary, like make sure you're taking this all in. I'm trying to remember to take pictures and when people often to take pictures, I like, yes, thank you so much and just staying in that moment of celebration even if it's for an extra minister to to just feel like, yes, it's all happening and that's gonna be with, you know, helpful for me probably on the next journey. Writing the next book is really having this well of memories of the gods, staff of the celebrations. So celebrating our successes and other peoples, I think, is really, really important as high achiever s because it's one of the top things that high drivers tend not to do. They're usually just right onto the next, onto the next go.

There are two questions I like to wrap the podcast up with. So the theme of the podcast is curiosity. What in most curious about today?

This is a great question one of my most curious about today. I am most curious to see what resonates most with readers because I truly believe that this book, the happy high achiever, is going to help people transform their lives for the Better. That's why i'm here, is what i'm passionate about doing.

What makes my heart sing is being a healer of hearts. And I do believe this book has science based strategies and skills that will help people heal the hearts in their heart. And so I can't wait. I am so curious and excited and great photo. I can't wait to find out what strategies, what skills, what concepts are those that resonate most and seem to help people heal their hearts the most.

And then the last question, mary, is there anything I haven't asked or something you want to make sure you leave the listeners with that we didn't get to talk about?

Oh, great question of gill. You're amazing. These have been phenomenal questions.

Thank you so much. You are amazing. You know what? One concept that I have found is so powerful has been so powerfully positive in my life and I talk about IT in the book it's essential number six and it's level up to gratitude base thinking.

And I think we're often socialized um especially is high achievers that that we believe in this what I call gratitude method. Its success leads to happiness, leads to gratitude. So when we're successful, they will be happy and they were more happy that will be grateful.

But what i've found that's entirely background. It's actually start with gratitude. So when we are grateful, that makes us happy.

And when we are happy, that fuel success. And so what we know is that when we're grateful, that means we're shining our flashlight tes. We're paying attention and appreciating in our lives what's valuable or meaningful and good.

And when we do that, when we focus our flash lites, when we think about things that are meaningful and valuable, good our lives, how are we going to feel good, right? We going to feel Better, even if are in a hard moment. It's not about implementing like toxic positivity.

It's not about that you do not have to like paste to fake smile on your phase if you're suffering, but it's about in any situation seeing what is meaningful and valuable that finally, profoundly helpful because we're going to feel Better. And when we're grateful and IT makes us happier, what we know again from abundant research is that happiness fuels success. When we're happier, we're more productive, resilient, creative.

We collaborate Better with people. And so in my life, what i've tried to do is find ways, do able ways, because because i'm busy, just like all of you listening ers are out there, you are all busy parly. Jm pack schedules, maybe already feeling over extended, overwhelmed, we have to find dubble ways to practice gratitude.

And so for me, what that means is throughout the day, I try to remember to say thank you to people I meet. Anytime anyone's helping, I always say thank you. I make sure that i'm texting my friends and family. Thank you.

And at night, before I write five things into a gratitude journal, and I old school and I have a pretty little journal, I break out my pen and I write down five things that i'm grateful for that happen that day. And I try to make them unique to that day, maybe a happy surprise. Or when I connected with someone, anything meaningful are valuable or good.

Like tonight, i'm definitely and me writing this same value, you get definitely top spot in my grade journal tonight. And i've really found IT helps me slide out to sleep and just such a like, a happy, contented way. And that's what research shows, is that practice in gratitude absolutely boosts mood IT, helps us relax, decreases cortisol that stressed her own.

There are so many profoundly positive impacts, benefits to be ungrateful. And I think that's one I have found so helpful in my own life, is no matter what moment, I mean, I tried to kind of ground myself in gratitude. And I often say that it's just such a Better vantage point that gratitude is the highest elevation of self talk.

IT is what is going to help us more than anything. So I think I want to make sure that I I put that out there for the listener's, that if you can any do away, start practicing gratitude within your own life. Absolutely, you will see the positive impact that will have on not only your mood, but I also truly believe in terms of success. People can find that gratitude is is like rocket fuel for your success.

Mary, what a great note to leave a on. As such a great, as such a great sign off. Thank you so much. It's been such a pleasure to speak with you, and I wish you all the best with your book lunch.

Thank you so much. Girl, this has been so much fun and you are amazing. I so grateful that I was able to be here today and to speak with you, and I just wish you all the best into other listeners out there. I wish many excEllent days ahead.

Curious mize at work is made possible through a partnership with the innovator circle and executive coaching firm for innovative leaders. A special thank you to producer in editor or maka ability for leading the amazing behind the scenes team that makes IT all happen. Each episode.

We give a shout out to something that's feeding our curiosity. This week it's cursed in Millers novel lulie ans little library of band books. It's a thought provoking story of how books could change minds, of how just one person can affect change for good or bad, and how curiosity and empathy can be the biggest difference makers read this book.