Good morning and welcome to the Increase for Impact Podcast. I'm Justin Sua, episode 2187. We often talk about stress and how it can be debilitating. And Stanford University psychologist, Dr. Aaliyah Crum is one of the eminent researchers on stress. And she says that stress often gets a bad rap. We call it the stress is debilitating belief,

where stress is horrible, avoid it at all costs. And she proposes a different idea. What if we viewed

stress as an enhancing belief? As she calls it, the stress can be enhancing belief.

And so if you're trying to help somebody,

you can be a family member, a teammate, if you're a leader,

whoever it may be, consider teaching them this stress can be enhancing belief.

Because the reality is that stress can serve as a source of energy or fuel to improve

performance, performance rather. It can actually help us do well. But the key is to remember it,

to reframe the story around stress. And as we help them take this approach to embrace stress rather than running from it or getting

crushed by it, it can help them as they navigate stress. They can embrace it more. They can change

the way they view stress. And then we'll be able to help them change the way they are affected

by stress or stress affects them.

And so rather than giving stress a bad rap and just saying, no, avoid it at all costs,

stress is baked into our jobs. Stress is baked into life. And if we have this mindset that

stress can help me, it can help me focus, it can help me be stronger,

it can help me, it can give me more energy, it can help me be a better problem solver, it can make me

better on the other end of the thing that's causing stress, then all of a sudden we view it more,

we have a more healthy and productive view of stress. So my invitation to you today is to take a

look at stress yourself and to see if whatever's stressing you out, ask yourself, how can the

stress help me be better? And maybe it might help you approach it a little bit better and attack it

head on as opposed to running from it.

Hopefully you enjoyed this episode and we'll do it again next time. One more thing.

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