[00:00:30] Speaker A: Welcome to Vital Signs where we talk about your greatest asset, your health. I'm Jen Goday, your fearless host and I'm here today with a very special guest. We're going to talk today about peak human performance.
High stakes, split second decisions, lives, reputations, dollars on the line. Whether a CEO, a parent, you're making decisions under pressure every day.
But the truth is if your nervous system isn't trained for pressure, your performance is going to break down. You'll make poor decisions, not the right decision. You're going to have times where you can't make a decision at all. But I've brought Rachel Vickery today here to talk to you about this. She works with elite military units, pro athletes and high impact leaders to architect resilience from the inside out.
Today she's here to teach you how to do it. Welcome to the show, Jen.
[00:01:23] Speaker B: Thanks for having me.
[00:01:24] Speaker A: I'm really excited about this because a really heavy topic lately has been about mental resilience and there's so much change happening in the world today. And as human beings, let's face it folks, we don't really like change.
It's unknown, it's uncertain, it brings all of the stress and tension buttons. So how do we train our physiology to perform when it counts, when we're having this much change like AI the world changing, how do we dial that in and really set ourselves for success?
[00:02:03] Speaker B: Yeah, I think one of the most missed things that we even think about, most of us don't think about our physiology, right? We're very aware about mentally or emotionally where we're at, or physically where we're at, but we forget about the stuff that's running the system underneath all of that.
I think biologically, right, we are feeling beings that think, not thinking beings that feel. So actually more of our thought processes are driven by our physiology than the other way around.
Across all of the performance arenas that I work in, one of the most common things that I see go wrong for people when they're trying to navigate uncertainty, unknown, high pressure. High stress is what I call the technical tactical hope strategy where people focus very much on the stuff, the technical piece or the tactical piece of what it is that they're doing. And then they just hope that they can handle pressure without actually understanding that it's actually just a learned skill in and of itself. You know, none of us are necessarily born with the ability to naturally handle pressure. But it starts by having an understanding of what are we actually talking about. When I talk about the physiological stress response and then more Importantly, how can we train it? Because until we know what it is, it's really hard to actually train it.
[00:03:12] Speaker A: Absolutely. So, you know, you say that resilience and managing our physiology is a trained skill, but a lot of people don't believe that or they don't. Like there's some misnomers or misconceptions under there.
People don't perform poorly because they're not talented, but because they aren't trained.
So can you dive a little deeper into what do you mean by we can train this skill set? Because, I mean, we see athletes perform under pressure, but that's not me. You know, that goes through a lot of people's heads. So how do we, how do we train that? What does that look like? What does that mean?
[00:03:52] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, one of the, my own personal experience, you know, as an elite gymnast. Right. I remember having this beam mount that I would do to start my beam routine and I could, and it was very difficult and I could nail it in practice and I could nail it in low pressure competitions. But my first big international, I fell and I couldn't understand. Why is it that my body feels different, my timing feels, even how I'm reading? The whole situation just felt so different, Right. And unfortunately, they try to work on that as a mental skill. You need to learn how to handle pressure and get mentally tough. But no one had given me this understanding of actually what's happening in my physiology. And so it's a very complex system. But to make it really, really simple, there's basically two parts to it. There's our calm nervous system, which is our parasympathetic nervous system, or our rest and digest nervous system. And then when that one's dominant, we're breathing into our belly. Our heart rate is N and low. We're very relaxed in our muscles. Our smart brain's online. We hear things really well and we can see the situation around us really well. The opposite of that is our body's fight and flight nervous system. And it kicks in when we think that there's a threat or a danger. It's very primal. It's not our mental, you know, ability to handle pressure. It's hard coded into every single human. Now when that sympathetic nervous system gets kicked off, heart rate spikes. Our breathing becomes more into our upper chest, our muscles are more tense, we lose some of our peripheral vision and what we hear because our body is getting primed to run away from that threat that's about to attack us. Now those two nervous systems are complete opposite of each other. So we're always fluctuating between those two, and we might fluctuate across a day, a week, a month, a year. And that's really normal. Now then we have a threshold, right? Which is basically a red line. It says, as long as my arousal state, what arousal state am I in right now? As long as that is below what my threshold is, my performance is going to stay online. So the challenge is if that accumulates over time as a consequence of a whole lot of stuff in the science. It's called allostatic load. We can talk about that a little bit in a second.
But I come into a pressure moment, and it can come out of left field and not necessarily prepared for it. And I get that escalation of arousal state because of some unknown or some uncertainty or I'm outside of my comfort zone. I cross my threshold. That's when my performance will start to fall apart. When I cross that threshold. Now, that's the. The understanding that I think we don't really get taught that ever to know that this human system is an operating system that we can learn to control and to run. And we just need to learn what levers do. I need to push and pull to give myself that balance always between my arousal state and my threshold.
[00:06:26] Speaker A: Okay, so let's talk about that red line, because I know what's going through the mind of people.
I've been that mom. Like, I have been a single mom in the past. Working, running a business, doing all the things, everything's on me. And. And you talk about the difference between these two, and I'm going to be frank, I was always operating at redline or above because I just didn't have this skill set to down regulate. And I had to do what I had to do to keep things going. So for the people there that are watching, that are like, hey, but that's fine, but there's no way for me to get below redline. I want to know what you have to say for them and for the other side of things.
How do I know if I'm at a physiological red line or I'm running hot even before the pressure hits? I know those two things are coming up in people's minds right now. So whichever you want to tackle first.
[00:07:16] Speaker B: All right, So, I mean, you can learn to push a red line out. That's one way to put buffer in your system, right, Is actually get comfortable being uncomfortable. And one of the ways you can practice that is this is not a popular thing to do, but have a cold shower every day for 30 days and train yourself to not react to the cold when you get in there. Right. It's interesting when you make that commitment to say to yourself, I'm going to have a cold shower. How you want to negotiate with yourself to not even get in there in the first place. Notice that about yourself and understand that you're probably making that choice to not be uncomfortable. Because humans don't like to choose to be uncomfortable. So even that is actually a little win that you actually get into your buffer and your nervous system about I am choosing to do hard things. The second thing is when you get in the cold shower and you notice your shoulders, you know, tight enough and everything gets tight and your breathing is really shallow and your heart's pounding, is learning to just drop your shoulders and breathe into your belly so you're not reacting to the chaos around you. So the calm and chaos is actually a really critical point to learn, you know, how, how to do. And that's a, that's a bulletproof skill that you can use no matter what's actually going on around you. Right. Is to be able to escalate that or de escalate that. Sorry. And then in terms of the how can you know that you're running, you know, close to redline? I think your tolerance is a really good litmus test as where you're actually sitting relative to your red line. So I have a rule that I, that I teach people. It's called the three idiot rule. And it's just a way to self reflect. And so the rule says, you know, if you meet one idiot by lunchtime, there's a fair chance it's probably them. If you meet three idiots by lunchtime, it's a fair chance it's probably you. So that's, you know, when every person who cuts you off in the traffic, you want to blow up as you know, that's a good sign that, hey, you're redlining a little bit, running too close.
Maybe you actually need to de escalate yourself. Because we think by being reactive that, you know, that's just a way of, I'm venting, I'm letting off steam. The downside of that is often when we lose it, you know, we yell at our kids or, you know, we drop this thing or we forget to do the thing, we actually create more chaos further down the track.
[00:09:16] Speaker A: That's right, because then we have the guilt because I didn't 100% my kid and all of the things that, that follow.
[00:09:21] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:09:22] Speaker A: So since we're on that topic, I Know you've got some real fail proof ways to down regulate that response. So when you find yourself ready to pop off at your kid, even though it's not their fault or whatnot, what are some things we can do in the moment to bring us down a notch so that we can, you know, take breath and have the calm, cool.
[00:09:46] Speaker B: Collected way of handling something and literally take a breath. Right? And so, you know, that's a technique I call a get out of jail card. And so if you cross your red line or you notice, hey, I'm about to, and I can feel everything's about to explode, this get out of jail card is intentionally turning on three parts of the calm nervous system that we do actually always have control over. So those three things are where do I look, where am I breathing to? And what do I think? So the get out of jail card, we just look up or just be aware of what we're seeing on our periphery. At the same time, do a really long slow exhale, breathe out slowly. Our heart rate actually slows down when we're breathing out, so we want to lengthen that. And then having a thought, that is gratitude or opportunity or curiosity. And I know in that moment it can be really hard to find something to be grateful for. So that's why it's quite important to have front loaded and thought about it in advance. What is my thing that I want to connect into in that moment? And it might be if it's the family, I'm actually really grateful that I do have the family or the health or whatever it is. And you get good at putting those things together in about five to 10 seconds. So as you look up and you breathe out, you're thinking that thing. Now the magic is you need to practice that in low threat environments. So you might be waiting in line for your coffee or someone cuts you off in traffic, use that tool in those low threat moments so it's there automatically for you when you need it in those more critical moments.
[00:11:12] Speaker A: Fantastic. And I'm just going to repeat that very briefly because we do have to go to break. But folks, that's when you feel like you are escalating, you're about to pop off and you know that's not the.
[00:11:22] Speaker C: Right thing to do, but you just can't help yourself. It's look up.
Long slow exhale, and what am I grateful for?
[00:11:30] Speaker A: Because that's going to help you to.
[00:11:32] Speaker C: Take that deep breath, to get that.
[00:11:35] Speaker A: Escalation down, decrease your heart rate and for you to actually think about what it is that you're saying and have a really positive response as opposed to a reactive one.
[00:11:46] Speaker C: We do have to take a brief break, but we will be right back after these important messages.
[00:12:22] Speaker A: Welcome back to Vital Signs. If you're just tuning in, you're going to want to make sure that you download Our Now Media TV app on iOS or Roku so that you can stay in touch with your favorite NOW Media TV TV shows anytime, anywhere. Prefer podcast format. Visit our
[email protected] where you can catch up with all of your favorite shows whenever you want, wherever you want, in podcast format. Without further ado, we are here with Rachel Vickery and we were talking about before the break how to down regulate or de escalate that red line when we're in a moment of crisis. How do we have calm in that chaos? Rachel, you work with people who literally do the hardest things. The elite military, hostage rescue teams, executives with, you know, livelihoods on the line.
What's another practice that you really lean into and work with these people on so that they can stay calm in the chaos?
[00:13:23] Speaker B: Yeah, so we spoke about the get out of jail card. So basically that's the one that you'd use if you cross your threshold and you need to immediately get yourself back from that or, or you know, you're about to cross your threshold. If you know you're coming into a moment, you know, maybe it's later on that day, you know, you've got a meeting, you've got a presentation. Maybe it's, you know, with kids, with sport, there's something that you've got a bit of warning for that is taking a couple of minutes just to sit. There's a breathing strategy called Theory of Four, and it's basically four minutes where you just sit and you breathe into your belly for four seconds, exhale for six seconds. It's a really good slow, you know, the emphasis on the out breath, designed to slow your heart rate down. You're not thinking about anything, actually, except for the air moving. Right. So there's a lot of science that shows that's a great way to just front load a little bit of buffer in advance of when you're going to step into that moment to absorb for the natural escalation that you have with that state in those moments. Right. So because I think it's important to remember that just because you're feeling elevated and maybe a bit anxious, that doesn't mean things are going to go bad. If you've kept your arousal state under your threshold so you know, if you're, let's say you're a parent and you've come home from a really busy day at work and you know, you need to step into a family environment, is maybe just take a couple of minutes in the car before you walk in the front door or vice versa. Maybe you're leaving for work and you've left a really chaotic home environment. Take a couple of moments before you walk into the work environment just to de escalate yourself. So that's a sort of a medium term strategy. But we talk about the get out of jail card. You know, the most effective get out of jail card is don't end up in jail in the first place and then you don't need that rescue. And so that's where we look at what are the things in the allostatic load list? What are your things that you know over time are going to push your arousal state closer to your threshold? And often it's the classics, you know, poor sleep, high sugar diet, you know, a lot of alcohol, you know, pain can be a big one for a lot of people. But then there's the fear of failure, fear of success, fear of what other people think, imposter syndrome, technology, you know, all of the stuff that's the allostatic load. So it's looking at what are my big ticket items in that list and what can I do to perhaps offset those things so it's not pushing my arousal state up in the first place. And those are the things that we talk about as being the non negotiables of human performance. I'd love to come in here, Jen, and give you a shiny technique that's like, you know, no one's used it before and it magically works. But unfortunately, you know, high performance really is about doing the common uncommonly well, right? So prioritizing really good sleep, whatever that needs to look like for you, but that six to eight hours, you know, in a cool dark environment, eating really clean, moving your body, learning how to breathe well, and I don't mean breath work, I mean what is your automatic way of breathing when you're not thinking about breathing, you know, having a daily gratitude practice, getting rid of toxins from your environment. So not just, you know, what do you ingest, but who do you spend time with? You know, are you spending time with energy suckers or are you surrounding yourself with people that elevate you and have you feel really good? You know, what do you watch, what do you listen to? So curating those things pretty ruthlessly as well.
[00:16:33] Speaker A: So pretty much watch vital signs.
[00:16:36] Speaker B: Oh, my goodness. Switch the news off. One of the best things you can do for yourself, like if you would not invest, invite those people into your dinner table at nighttime. Don't be eating dinner, watching the news at the same time. We see a lot of people do that. Right.
And then fundamentally is know who you are. Like, have a North Star, you know, that work on your values. Who I am as a human being, what do I stand for? That's probably one of those really key anchor points that we often don't even think about, but is actually one of our biggest, you know, resilience factors for these high pressure, chaotic environments where so often there's so much outside of our control.
[00:17:09] Speaker A: Absolutely. And I want to just hone in on that. You know, folks, she's talked about controlling what you ingest, and what you ingest is what you're watching, what you're listening to.
[00:17:19] Speaker C: And there's so much negativity out there.
[00:17:20] Speaker A: There's so much sensationalism, and it just escalates us further.
If we just choose not to have that in our social media feed. And you can do this, you can unfollow the negative stuff, and all you see is positive. That's going to reinforce some of what.
[00:17:38] Speaker C: Rachel is talking about, because it's so important that we recognize what's inside of our control and what is not.
What's inside of our control. I can turn off the TV and.
[00:17:47] Speaker A: Not listen to, you know, the.
[00:17:49] Speaker C: I live in Houston and it's always a murderer.
[00:17:52] Speaker A: There's always something negative on the news.
[00:17:55] Speaker C: But I can turn that off. And I can instead choose to talk about what was awesome about today.
So it's those small little choices that we make and how. How we consume and who we're around that makes such a difference when it comes to our frame of thinking. And so, you know, you've said in the past that you can't fake calm.
Some people might be redlining and they're running hot, but they appear, they have the appearance of being calm.
How is that possible? How do we know if we're faking it till we make it? Like, how do we know internally? And how do we teach our children?
How do we instill this in our children?
[00:18:38] Speaker B: Yeah. And you're right about that. Putting on the mask. Right. And we think as long as I put on the mask, people aren't going to know that I'm stressed or worried or fearful. Right. I think one of the best things we actually need to do, we've Actually stopped giving people permission that it's okay to feel fear and it's okay to feel elevated and say, hey, I'm actually really nervous in this situation.
But the difference is acknowledging it. And then more importantly, and here's what I'm going to do to calm myself down. Right, because if you don't, then, you know, you might think that you're squared away, but that's going to be flying out sideways on people around you. Just with your vibe, your language, your communication, your body language. And we know as humans, we just pick up on some of those non verbals more powerfully than what someone else is saying or doing.
[00:19:27] Speaker A: Especially our children.
[00:19:28] Speaker B: Especially our children. Yeah. And if our children are scattered and you know what? It often it's because we, because we're actually scattered as well. Or the other way around, you know, it's like we don't want to react to them. So the best way to learn to de escalate those around us if there's chaos happening is actually first and foremost de escalate ourselves. First, be able to slow ourselves down, slow our speech down, breathe into our belly, be really present.
And it's amazing as we actually start to do that, you know, the people around us are actually going to de escalate.
Well, but I think, you know, there is that myth though, right, that people think, oh, just because I look, I look calm, then I must feel calm. But as I said, like, you know, most of the high performers I work with, I'll work with people that, as you say, are going into the most like life or death type situations and they will admit to themselves in that moment, which is really important. I'm actually feeling afraid right now, or I've got fear right now.
And here's what I'm going to do to make sure I escalate. I execute the thing really cleanly. So it's not the feeling that's the problem, it's what do you do with that feeling.
[00:20:32] Speaker A: Oh, and you know, we talk about that all the time in business and sports. It's, you know, the fear of or the inability to make that PR or nail that skill or whatnot.
It's acknowledging that and saying, okay, what is inside my control? I'm going to practice this one piece of the skill until I nail it. I'm going to practice it and practice it and practice it and I'm going to practice it but perfectly. I'm not going to practice imperfection. I'm going to have a coach telling me what to do. And you sort of do that for people. You coach people on how to de escalate.
But I think one of the things that I'm taking away, and hopefully you are too at home, is that we can put on the mask, but people can sense that we're not that calm, cool, collected on the inside, especially our children. And in today's world is so incredibly important. Important that we learn how to down regulate that in ourselves and we teach that skill to our kids because there's so much that our kids face.
And the other thing is, you know, we haven't talked about this today, but you and I offline have talked about everybody thinks you rise to the occasion, but the reality is you don't. You fall to your highest level of training. And one of the things that you've taught today is it's important for us to practice some of these ways of bringing ourselves down.
So people haven't trained their nervous system for performance. And before we break, what is the one action that you want people to take today so they can start to train that nervous system?
[00:22:02] Speaker B: Just practice even that get out of jail card, right? Learn what is my trigger? When do I feel up? First of all, notice what is my thing that has me know that I am getting up and then use that get out of jail card. Look up, breathe out, gratitude, practice, move on.
[00:22:19] Speaker A: I love it, Rachel. And how can people reach out to you if they would like to learn more? Because the reality is sometimes this isn't something we can do on our own. Sometimes we need a coach or somebody to come in and help us with this skill set.
[00:22:31] Speaker B: Yeah. Thank you. I've got some great resources on my website, which is www.rachelvickery.com.
my email address is there and I'm very active on LinkedIn as well.
[00:22:41] Speaker C: Thank you so much, folks.
[00:22:43] Speaker A: Feel free to reach out to Rachel. Rachelvickery.com whether you're walking into a boardroom, a battlefield, or your teenager's major meltdown.
[00:22:50] Speaker C: Your ability to lead and make the right decision and be proactive instead of reactive begins with how well you've trained your nervous system. It's really important that we train for the things that we want to have occur. And Rachel has given us an excellent get out of jail free practice to do. What happens though, when your whole identity shifts? In the next segment, we're going to dive into who you are when the title, the role, the layoff, whatever, the routine is gone. Maybe it's your empty nesting now. How do you navigate life's biggest transitions without losing yourself? You're not going to want to touch that dial. Stick around. We will be right back after these important mess.
[00:24:00] Speaker A: Job loss, retirement, role shifts, divorce, empty nesting. These moments shake the ground beneath us. Not just because of change, but because it impacts who we think we are. I'm Jen Gode, host of Vital Signs, here today with Rachel Vickery. And we're going to talk about what happens when our identity is stripped away and how do we rebuild from a place of empowerment instead of a place of panic.
Rachel, I'm so excited to be here to talk to, to you about this. You know, the physiology and psychology, the toll that it takes during these identity transitions is huge.
And you're, you're very familiar with this. You've had this in your past. We both have had these major life transitions.
Share with me a little bit about your big transition from being an elite athlete to what happens next. And so that we can kind of dial into how do we not lose ourselves?
[00:24:59] Speaker B: And in the process, yeah, man, I wish I knew then what I know now and how often do we say that, right? But yeah, I mean I was an elite gymnast. I was six years on the international team for New Zealand. I live in Australia, but I was on the New Zealand gymnastics team. Started gymnastics at 3 and retired at 19. So my whole development really as a human being was wrapped up in this identity of being an elite international gymnast. And then one day, of course I retired, you know, at 19 and there was this big hole out the back end that I hadn't prepared for. We weren't prepared for it as athletes and I got to some pretty dark places, I must admit. I was grateful I was able to throw myself straight into physio school. But at the same time, that complete loss that I had in terms of who am I, what am I about my sense of purpose, my sense of everything that was important to me for so many years.
My self worth had been built from external validation, being on national teams and media and all of that sort of stuff that if had me feel like I'm a good enough human and the challenge with that is when I didn't have that identity anymore. And I hear this so often from the people I work with is when they don't have that identity, then they haven't got that thing that's validating them, you know, they're not getting that same self worth and that self value and all of those pieces. So it really is when we transition out of something like that from an emotional perspective and I know we can talk about the physiology cost in A second.
But it is a grief process, and we need to allow ourselves to run through that and understand that it's really normal. It is going to be an adjustment process, and we will actually come out the other side of that if we have set ourselves up well for that in the first place.
[00:26:34] Speaker A: You know, and I'm just going to add to that, Rachel, because I've done it. I left medicine after 20 years. I left sports medicine, and my whole life I was an athlete, but I went into sports medicine because I wanted to work with athletes. And then I was like, well, I'm done. I'm going to move into this new thing. And it was a natural evolution, I thought.
And I thought I did all the right things. And two years after I let my license retire, I went into a deep, dark hole because I was no longer that part of me. And all the planning and prep in the world, folks, doesn't make a difference to the grief process.
We can push that grief process down and we can think we've got it and we put on the mask. But the reality is, is every transition has a grieving process. When our child goes off to college or our children are all off to college and independent, we're no longer that mom that they need. We're still mom, they still need us. But it's in a completely different way because we've done our job right. We raised independent humans. And this transition, lots of people crumble, Rachel. Lots of people crumble. And it's not because they're weak.
It's because they never trained for the shift.
So what can we do to train the nervous system for some of these transitions in life?
[00:27:54] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, the thing from the neurophysiology, we touched on the mental and emotional, the identity that we're aware of. But the piece we've got to remember is the physiology under the surface. And humans don't like uncertainty. And it's literally a survival instinct that's built into our physiological nervous system, because uncertainty, usually in primal days, meant threat and danger. That was where the thing was going to kill us. So we needed to be aware of that. So if they think about any transition, there's so much uncertainty and unknown often in that time, that our nervous system is naturally automatically going to react by feeling, you know, stressed and elevated. Now, just because it reacts like that doesn't mean we need to buy into that. So some of the things that we can do is thinking about, you know, attaching my identity to what I do, not who I am, to who I am. Sorry, not what I do. Absolutely. So, you know, I am someone who, you know, lives with excellence. I am someone who you know can do hard things. I am someone who is driven through service, you know, whatever those key things are about who you are, because they will transfer out. If you're a parent who now you find yourself as an empty nester. I am someone who you know, can love deeply and raise good humans, you know, whatever it is, because you can find other ways to put that stuff into, you know, but also looking for the things that you have got control over, you know, because I think when we think about uncertainty and unknown and often in those transition periods too, we often find ourselves outside of our comfort zone. This is new and different for us.
So looking around to go, what have I got control over? And taking accountability and some, and responsibility. Responsibility and action, some of those things. And you know, one of the things I picked this up from, from the military, they talk about the three feet around them, you know, what within this three foot radius have I actually got control over? Because all of that chaos and noise that's way out outside of us, it can be really destabilizing, but it's not within our control often.
[00:29:49] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:29:50] Speaker C: And so, you know, let's dive a little bit deeper into that because earlier.
[00:29:56] Speaker A: Today we talked about setting up the practice and building a buffer, physiologically speaking, so that we're not always at redline.
How important and what are some of the things we can do physiologically, neurologically speaking, when we're approaching a transition? Because some transitions we can prepare for, others we can't. We can't prepare for, you know, an automatic all of a sudden loss of a loved one or some things we can't prepare for. But the ones that we can, can.
What can those watching, what can we be doing?
[00:30:27] Speaker B: Yeah, if you know it's coming, you can be preparing in advance by just laying down some of those simple foundations. And again, I sound like I'm repeating a record. I know you probably feel the same too often, but it really is those fundamentals of what does our human physiology need? It needs really good sleep, you know, eating really clean, so not having sugar. If we know we're coming into a high pressure, high peak moment, you know, for me, myself, I'll get ruthless with curating and making sure I'm sleeping really well, I'm eating really clean, I'm hydrating well, and I'm moving my body just so that at least I've got as much buffer in my nervous system as a consequence of that. Even though to your point, if it is something that's come out of the blue sideways, you know, and we weren't prepared for it, we can still actually pick those practices up, even if we don't feel like we've got any other motivation to, you know, get to the gym or look after ourselves. And. And some of those bigger ways that might take some energy, even just thinking about one or two of those daily habits that we can do that are just gonna really optimize our physiology.
[00:31:27] Speaker A: Well, you know, you say that and something just came to my mind, and it's something that I talk about with entrepreneurs, actually, and that's. We all wake up and a lot of people think I wake up and I'm always motivated. Folks, I'm here to tell you, I do not wake up motivated every single day. I don't have high energy every single day. Single day. I don't. I have bad days, too.
But a lot of people have a misconception that you have to wake up motivated, and if you don't wake up motivated, that there's something wrong.
And then how do we. How do we shift from how am I feeling and that dictates my routine to this is my routine, and it doesn't matter whether I feel motivated or not. I'm gonna get up and I'm gonna get my tail walk in. My. My morning routine include. Includes walking. I walk three to four miles every morning because it.
[00:32:15] Speaker C: It's in nature, it gets me breathing, it clears my head, and it sets me for success. It's just a practice that I have. And.
[00:32:22] Speaker A: And it's sunshine and I'm a sun baby.
[00:32:24] Speaker C: But, you know, like, what is it? How do we shift from I have.
[00:32:28] Speaker A: To be motivated to go to the.
[00:32:30] Speaker C: Gym or to eat well or whatnot, versus this is just who I am and what I do.
[00:32:35] Speaker B: Yeah. Oh, my goodness. And as you're talking about that, it reminds me of when I was a gymnast. I don't think there was a single day that I woke up, up actually wanting to go to training very early in the morning. But I wanted the result. Right. I wanted to be on the international team, and I wanted to be the best gymnast that I could be. And so I was committed to what am I going to have to do to get that outcome, not buying into how am I feeling. And I think a lot of us will often fall into that, where we often wait until we feel different before we do different things without actually remembering we have to do different things if we want to feel different.
[00:33:06] Speaker C: That's true.
[00:33:07] Speaker B: So Finding that way to shift your state like you do, you get up in the morning and you go walking, you know, and you state, you know, so whatever it is that your thing is, do something different.
[00:33:14] Speaker C: Well, and I mean, I'm going to use the gym as an example. I was in sports medicine when I retired sports medicine. I didn't want to go within a thousand miles of a gym. I didn't want to see other people sweat, smell other people sweat, feel other people sweat, the humidity. I didn't want any of that. But the reality is, when I go to the gym and I lift and when I lift heavy, I love the way I feel after. I feel great, but I don't get that feeling if I don't go to the gym. So it's kind of a. It's kind of the same thing. Like, it's not about motivation. It's not about what I want. It's about what I want on the other side of it, you know? And so talk to me about the people who are watching who maybe don't.
[00:33:52] Speaker A: Have a routine to draw from, and.
[00:33:54] Speaker C: Maybe they're in one of these transition periods.
[00:33:57] Speaker A: What is one starting point that kind of universally people can begin to implement.
[00:34:04] Speaker C: To start, kickstart that routine.
[00:34:05] Speaker A: That'll give them an immediate kind of boost.
[00:34:08] Speaker B: Yeah, you just. Yeah, this will sound unpopular, but you have to be disciplined. Set that alarm and get up, you know, commit the night before. I'm going to get up at this time and get up at that time, you know, make your bed, because at least then you've achieved something. Right. And get outside, go for a walk, do some exercise. If exercise just isn't your thing, have something that you have committed to do that day and get out and do that thing early in the day. At least you've actually changed the momentum that you're going to move into the day with.
[00:34:34] Speaker C: That's fantastic. So what I'm hearing is pick the.
[00:34:36] Speaker A: One thing that you are going to.
[00:34:38] Speaker C: Do and when that alarm goes off, no snooze.
[00:34:41] Speaker A: We don't snooze in here. We don't snooze on vital signs. We get up and we do that one thing because we have momentum that's.
[00:34:49] Speaker C: Positive and that's going to help us shift our attitude. How can people reach out to you, Rachel, if they're interested in learning more?
[00:34:55] Speaker B: Yeah. Wonderful. Thank you. My email address is on my website, which is www.rachelvickory.com, and reach out to me on LinkedIn as well.
[00:35:04] Speaker A: I highly recommend you guys reach out to Rachel. She is amazing. She works with people from military to athletes to entrepreneurs and everyone in between.
[00:35:14] Speaker C: To help them with this process.
[00:35:16] Speaker A: We do have to take a brief break, but the good news is as.
[00:35:19] Speaker C: We'Ll be here just after these moment messages.
[00:35:50] Speaker A: Foreign.
Welcome back to Vital Signs. I'm Jen Goday here with Rachel Vickery. But before we dive into our topic, if you're loving what you're watching, don't miss a moment of it. Make sure you have downloaded the Now Media TV app on iOS or Roku so you can watch your favorite programming anytime, anywhere. Prefer the podcast version. Check out www.nowmedia.tv where you can find all the episodes of this show and your favorites anytime, anywhere. Ready when you are.
We've been talking with Rachel about quite a lot performance under pressure down, regulating that stress response and how do we use our get out of jail Free cards so that we can be above the line with our communications with our children or any anybody we come into contact with even during a crisis. And now I want to touch on something that's very real. I know a lot of you have reached out to me on LinkedIn, have emailed me and whatnot, and you have a lot of questions about how do I navigate this new world that's filled with AI and the shifting careers and I'm worried about am I going to have a job? There's a lot of massive change and how do you continue to show up and put, perform and take care of your health during this process. So Rachel, I want to dive into that topic because it's real, it's relevant. People are really struggling with this.
What do people need to remember as we're moving through this ever changing, constant change AI scenario in the world today?
[00:37:28] Speaker B: Yeah, hey, there's that saying change is a constant, right?
But unfortunately, humans don't like change. Again, it's outside of our comfort zone.
Our threat response is naturally going to kick off, but I think the thing that we can remember is that the thing is out of our control, but our reaction to the thing is within our control. So am I going to see AI as a threat? Am I going to see this upheaval and this disruption as a threat, or am I going to see it as an opportunity? And literally how we frame that in our mind is going to have the impact on turning on our calm nervous system or our stress nervous system. If I'm setting that thing up as a thing, threat and all of the things that I might lose and that might change and you know, that's Going to be bad about it. My nervous system is going to be in that sympathetic nervous system. And then my thinking is also going to then spiral more into short term and reactive and stressed about it. And we can really quickly get caught in that loop. But if we can catch ourselves in that moment and again, you know, we'll probably feel a bit of anxiety or uncertainty when we think about it, but we can catch it in the moment and go, okay, how do I frame this for myself as an opportunity? What is, how is this going to be good for me? How do I use this to my advantage? You know, where are the opportunities that this is going to create? I think that's, you know, just as a broad brushstroke. Our mental approach to it can make a fundamental difference.
[00:38:44] Speaker A: Oh, absolutely. I couldn't agree more. And you know, one thing is assured, it's here, it's not going anywhere. And I like to look at it like I'm going to choose to leverage the tool to do the things that I don't want to do or to make my life easier and then I'm going to leave the rest elsewhere. But when I'm choosing to leverage technology or to learn the new skill set, which by the way is stressful, it's stressful to learn a new skill set, but I'm choosing to do it so that it can make my life easier. What I find happens is you have an element of control over it instead of it controlling you. And so let's liken this to everything else we've talked about. Humans don't like change. It's about positive mental attitude. It's about how we're viewing it as opportunity. How can those who are viewing, who are in that fear loop break from that fear loop? And what's that first step so that they can shift towards the opportunity in the past?
[00:39:46] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, if you're in that first loop, the first thing you have to do is get out of it. And the best way to get out of your head is get in your body. You know, so it might be using that get out of jail card, which is a very body aware strategy. You know, when you think about gratitude, you look up, you breathe out, you put that together. Maybe you just sit and breathe for a period of time, be in your feet. It doesn't matter what it is that you need to do something quickly just to break that loop. And then just looking for, where is this an opportunity for me? How am I going to create this to, to, to, to your point to, to work to my Advantage. But I think everything we were talking about, about leveraging control of your nervous system, if we look at what's coming down the pipe, you know, we're going to have to be able to make decisions faster. We're going to have so much more stuff coming at us faster as well, because the world is going to speed up, you know, and so our ability to be in control of our ourselves, our human operating system against some of these AI systems, you know, there's a huge advantage for those of us that can actually be in control of ourselves. Right. Control and regulate our arousal state, you know, keeping the human in the room, really, when we're actually working with these AI tools. So there's a lot of opportunities just in that.
[00:40:54] Speaker C: Absolutely.
[00:40:55] Speaker A: And in the prior segment, we talked.
[00:40:57] Speaker C: About transition and we talked about preparing for transition. Well, this is just another transition. This is another form of transition.
[00:41:03] Speaker A: The reality is jobs will be lost, jobs will become obsolete, but there's new.
[00:41:08] Speaker C: Jobs that haven't even been created yet. And it's up to us to define who we are, what is our identity as we move forward. And it really and truly, it's about who we're being.
And so do you have any further advice? We've talked about a lot of different things today for those out there who can elevate who they're being as they take on this new transition in life.
[00:41:32] Speaker A: Or place of power.
[00:41:33] Speaker B: Oh, man. And this is the stuff that gets me really excited. Right. Because now we're actually talking about the deep human behind the physiology. Right. That true. Who am I? What am I about? What do I stand for? And I think, you know, that's actually understand that is where your true identity lies. You get to decide, how do I want to show up in the world, who do I want to be? How do I want to show up for the people around me? And what impact do I want to have on the world? You know, there is so much negativity. You know, humanity right now is really on a knife edge. Right. And we get to decide which. Which side of that do I want to land on? And more importantly, how do I want to influence that? So read, you know, listen to stuff, learn about yourself, delve deep into, you know, some of that deep. Who do I want to be? What are my values? Think about it. How often we throw terms around about values and ethics and those sorts of things, but how often do we actually really think about what's important to me? And more importantly, how am I going to live those things out into the world? So that at the end of the day, I can look at myself in the mirror. Hand on heart, go. You know, I'm a good human being. I show up with really good intent and more importantly, show up in a way to try and set those around me up for success and a good life as well.
[00:42:42] Speaker A: I love it.
I am so loving you. I'm like, yes, girl, yes, preach.
And so we've talked about a lot of different things and it's about really, we get to choose who we're going to be and how we show up. And this, this is in transition. I'm in transition right now. My husband and I are moving. He's changing jobs, I'm changing, like I've let go of a couple of businesses and, and I'm moving forward and, and I sat and it's really funny because everything you just said, I went through this process myself, folks, this over the last couple of weeks and I sit with it because it is, it's a lot of uncertainty. I'm living in a new place. Where am I going to live?
How is it going to be? Like, I'm going to be farther away from my family? How is that going to work? Like everything was uncertain, everything was in flux, including what I'm doing in my day today. And so I sat with it and I said, you know what, this is actually an adventure. I get to have fun with this. How can I have fun and choose what my days look like and what is that going to be moving forward?
And so I really love that you brought that up because we're on the precipice of what's next. And as a collective, each and every one of us gets to choose what that looks like for us and for our families and for the greater community in our world. So we were drawing towards the end of this show, but we have talked about a non negotiable morning routine. What is the one thing you're going to get up and do? Doesn't have to be fancy, just has to be familiar. Wake up, do it. Get that. We've talked about the get out of jail free card. Looking up long exhale, having something we're grateful for and so much more.
But the reality is transition doesn't have to break you. It can build you, but only if you train for it and train for it.
[00:44:24] Speaker B: Today.
[00:44:24] Speaker A: Rachel has given us the blueprint. Rachel, if people want to reach out, access your expertise, work with you, how can they do that?
[00:44:32] Speaker B: Best way to get me directly is off my website. My website is www.rachelvickary.com. Contact us on that or on LinkedIn. I'll probably just leave. You know, you were saying, like, stay curious, right? The best antidote to fear is curiosity.
[00:44:48] Speaker A: Absolutely. And so we are at the end of our episode. Rachel, what is the one mic drop moment that you want everybody to leave today with?
[00:44:57] Speaker B: Yeah, I just, I just think, you know, you're not gonna, you're not gonna. In a, in a crux moment, you're not gonna rise to that occasion, right? You're gonna find, fall to the level of whatever you've trained yourself for. So front load, do that preparation, know who you are and what you're about and choose who you're going to show up as.
[00:45:14] Speaker A: That's so fantastic. So I highly encourage you, go to rachelvickory.com, follow Rachel on social access her.
[00:45:23] Speaker C: Work, watch what she's doing, because her.
[00:45:26] Speaker A: Insights are making waves across high performance industries.
[00:45:28] Speaker C: And she's just getting started.
[00:45:30] Speaker A: If you're in transition right now, pause, breathe, reclaim your calm. And remember, you don't have to have.
[00:45:36] Speaker C: It all together to get to the next step.
[00:45:38] Speaker A: You don't have to know all the things.
[00:45:40] Speaker C: You just have to do the next best thing.
So as we spoke about today, practice your calm in the chaos. Pick your morning routine.
Decide how you're going to show up as the world is changing, and do it now. Start today. Take action today, today, and build that practice. Because when we build that practice, it becomes a part of who we are and it allows us to bring down that baseline, get out of that red line and have more spaciousness for everything that's coming. I'm really excited about the future. Rachel, thank you so much for all of your expertise, everything you've brought today. It's been really insightful. And if you had one action item that you wanted people to take today right now, what would it be?
[00:46:27] Speaker B: Just do that get out of jail card. Learn to control yourself, de escalate yourself.
[00:46:32] Speaker C: Fantastic.
[00:46:33] Speaker A: Thank you for your time.
[00:46:33] Speaker B: Pleasure. Thanks, Jen.
[00:46:35] Speaker A: And you.
[00:46:35] Speaker C: Yes, you. All good things do come to an end, including this show, but the good news is we'll be here same time, same station next week. Until then, enjoy the rest of your day.
