Melt The Glass Ceiling
Are you a career woman? Do you work in a male dominated workplace? In Melt The Glass Ceiling, your career coach, Lisa Liszcz, will share tips and strategies on developing the career of your dreams. New episodes drop each week.
Melt The Glass Ceiling
How Can Professional Women Thrive and Be Stronger Than Stress in the Workplace?
Unlock the secret to not just managing, but thriving despite stress with insights from the esteemed Dr. Sandra Thebaud, a clinical psychologist with an impressive 30-year tenure in stress management. This episode of Melt the Glass Ceiling delves into the inspiration behind her groundbreaking book, "Stronger Than Stress," and her mission to make stress management both practical and actionable. Dr. Thebaud challenges the conventional wisdom of seeking a stress-free life, arguing that some stress is essential for motivation and purpose. Her practical techniques help bridge the gap between knowing how to manage stress and actually applying these methods in daily life.
Professional women facing chronic stressors will find this conversation particularly valuable as Dr. Thebaud sheds light on the physiological roots of stress and offers practical strategies like diet, exercise, and mindfulness to combat it. The discussion emphasizes the empowerment that comes from taking control of one's stress responses, with a personalized approach to achieving holistic well-being. From QR codes linking to supplementary YouTube videos to a personal playbook, Dr. Thebaud equips listeners with resources to become stronger than stress and genuinely thrive.
Click below to learn more:
Link to Lisa's private Facebook Group for Professional Women
Link to Dr. Sandra's Stress Assessment
Link to Dr. Sandra's Book, Stronger Than Stress
Link to Dr. Sandra's LinkedIn Page
Welcome everyone. To Melt the Glass Ceiling, I am here today with my amazing, beautiful, talented and brilliant friend, dr Sandra Thiebaud. We met in my Facebook group, which was such a treat and one of the benefits of getting connected in our Facebook group. Dr Sandra Thiebaud is a distinguished clinical psychologist with 30 years of experience in stress management, so we are so glad to have her here today. Dr Sandra is also a member of the Colorado Supreme Court Character and Fitness Committee. She began her career as an active duty Navy psychologist, teaching stress management to active duty Navy and Marine Corps members, as well as the medical staff of Naval hospitals. Dr Thibault is renowned for her ability to facilitate stress management workshops for both large and small organizations. She has written three books on stress management, including her most recent book, stronger Than Stress, which we are going to hear about today, and I'm so excited about it. Welcome, dr Sander. We're happy to have you with us today. Thank you for joining, oh my gosh, lisa.
Speaker 2:I'm so excited to be here. We always have the best time when we talk.
Speaker 1:We do, and this was such a wonderful opportunity to reconnect and catch up and I cannot wait to hear all about your amazing book. I know it's amazing and it's so important. This is such an important topic for everyone in the workplace today. I'm such an advocate for our professional women in the workplace and I know this is going to serve them well, so thank you for being here. I'm curious, dr Sander can you tell me, tell us all, tell the audience, what was the inspiration behind your book? Stronger Than Stress? What led you to explore this topic?
Speaker 2:I've been teaching stress management for 30 years now and it just never ceases to amaze me how that there's a barrier between the information and the application, and I really wanted to close that information, because you can Google all kinds of information about stress management, you can read books about stress management, but for some reason they're not closing that gap between the information and it actually making an impact in people's lives, and that's really what I wanted to do was create an impact in people's lives. So this book it turned out to be a lot bigger than I expected it to be, but that's because I have included everything that you need to know about managing stress, both physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. You don't need to go anywhere else for any kind of information. It's all in this book and my hope is that I was successful in closing that gap between knowing what to do and actually doing it.
Speaker 1:Oh, I love that. That is so important. I love that that is so important and I love that you're taking such a comprehensive and practical approach applicable, really practical approach to something that we all deal with and helping us to create solutions and get results. And that's what I know that my clients and you probably see it with your clients too what we really need. People want an action plan and something very practical.
Speaker 1:And you've given that to them, I'm thrilled. I'm thrilled. So, dr Sandra, stress is a common experience in our lives. What motivated you to delve into the idea of being stronger than stress rather than simply managing it?
Speaker 2:Ironically speaking, we are all already managing stress. If you got out of bed this morning, you are managing the stress that's on your plate. But managing stress isn't enough. That just means you're surviving. It doesn't necessarily mean that you're thriving.
Speaker 2:So I want to move away from that term of managing stress, because we're already doing that. What we need is the next level. How do we feel like stress is something we can overcome, as opposed to being squashed by it? So I wanted to help people understand that when you're, if you feel like you're managing stress, are you sure you're not just getting to the point where you've gotten used to it? It's like the boiling frog right, it's a little bit warm, but you're like okay, this is okay, it gets a little bit warmer. You're like, okay, I can handle that. And then it gets to the point of the boiling point and you're a goner. And this is how burnout happens, is people just go okay, I got this, I can handle this. And the next thing you know you're collapsed. You're exhausted, you want to just quit your job, you want to live on a private island, you don't have to talk to anybody anymore. So managing it does not necessarily mean that you've got a handle on it.
Speaker 1:Right, oh, that's. I'm like you're blowing my mind. This is so important and so new to me, actually, and so I really like that. So we want to not just survive, we want to thrive and really overcome the stress and avoid that risk of burnout and needing to just check out of what we're doing, because we want to be able to engage in life fully and thrive but not have that burden of everything that comes along with stress.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and if you're just managing it, you've got your head just above the waterline. You're just about not drowning.
Speaker 1:Yeah, wow, that's big, that's big. That's a paradigm shift for me and a light bulb moment. So I really appreciate that. That is good. Dr Sandra, how would you define stress and what are some of the common misconceptions people have about it that you address in your book?
Speaker 2:Absolutely. Let me tell you about the biggest misconception that I see and unfortunately it gets promoted by some stress management websites as well. Because of our desire to be stress-free and unfortunately that's the biggest misconception you can never be stress-free. In fact, stress is what keeps us motivated and focused and going. So we need a certain level of stress in our lives. Think about somebody who doesn't have any stress in our lives. Think about somebody who doesn't have any stress in their lives. They're unmotivated, they have no purpose, they have no reason to get out of bed. Life is just boring all the time. So we really need a certain amount of stress in our lives, something that makes us really feel challenged.
Speaker 2:And when I do my training, the example that I use the most is an Olympic athlete.
Speaker 2:Now think about an Olympic athlete.
Speaker 2:You don't want that Olympic athlete to have too much stress, because they'll just mess up, but you also don't want them to have so little stress that they're like I get that gold medal, it's okay if I don't, and we are like that too.
Speaker 2:Especially if you're a professional woman, you want to be at the top of your game, and so that means you've got to find that balance between not having so much stress that you're not able to perform at peak performance. But also you don't want so little stress that you don't even care about your performance either. You don't care that. You're just going to do the minimal and just line by. That's not enough stress. That means you're not being challenged enough, you're not feeling a sense of accomplishment when you overcome a problem in your career. So I want people to get rid of the idea that you can eliminate stress. You want to be able to use it. You want to use it as a tool to make you the best athlete, the best professional woman, the best, whatever your job is. You want to use stress to make you the best.
Speaker 1:I love that so much. That's so empowering, and there are a few things there that you talked about, dr Sandra, that I just love. The idea of using stress. When you said that, you know what popped into my head Stronger than stress, that if we can use our stress, then that is inevitable and actually in some ways healthy for us. That's right. Then we're in that way. We can be stronger than stress because we're in charge. The stress is in charge, and that's what you're writing about in your book. I just love it and I love your energy so much and I love you talking about overcoming challenges and how that challenges present stress in our lives, but by overcoming that, we empower ourselves, we become stronger than stress and I see it with the professional women that I work with. I see overcoming challenges as being such confidence builder and that really empowers women.
Speaker 1:So that is just a beautiful way to shift our thinking about stress, that we do want some stress. We want those challenges because by overcoming that and really succeeding and becoming stronger, we empower ourselves.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it's the foundation of resilience. You don't build resilience without it.
Speaker 1:Perfect, and resilience is one of the key leadership competency that we all need as leaders. To be as active, we have to have that resilience, so I love that. Thank you for pointing that out. That is so helpful. I'm curious now in your research, have you come across any surprising or counterintuitive finding about stress and its impact on our wellbeing?
Speaker 2:Absolutely Similar to the misconception that stress can be eliminated. I find a lot of the direction that people go in in terms of stress is that it's bad, it's bad for us, it'll kill us. The stress response on a physiological, biological level is a life-saving response. That's why it bypasses your frontal lobes. If you're walking through the wood and you step on something and your brain automatically goes could have just stepped on a snake your fire flight system is going to react. It's not going to wait for you to look around and go was it a snake or was it a twig or before because you can get bitten by a venomous. Yeah, you know it's a move, so your body needs to go. It was designed to go into fight or flight right away and then assess the danger later. So if you find out that yes, it was just a twig and it wasn't a snake, then your firefly system calms down.
Speaker 2:The reason that we have a problem right now is because we don't have short-term stressors. We have chronic stressors that go on for a long time, like raising children while taking care of elderly parents or financial issues or career issues, and those things activate our fight or flight and it never calms down. You never get to that. Oh, it wasn't a snake moment, it's just a twig. It's harmless, there's no threat going on that would allow your fight or flight system to calm down, and so that's the reason why we demonize stress. But I also want people to understand that stress has a role. We wouldn't be on this planet still today. We didn't have our fight or flight system keeping us alive whenever something happened where we just needed to read. Well, the reason why we have to manage our stress now, as I said, it's not because of stress, it's because of the stressors. The stressors are going on and on, and on and on, and they don't give our bodies a chance to recover. So you now need to consciously get your body to recover from stress.
Speaker 1:Wow, and that is a very powerful habit or practice to take ownership over driving your own recovery response, reducing that stress. I love that. That can be very empowering as well. You take a very holistic approach to being stronger than stress. Can you talk a little bit more about that and how factors like diet, exercise and the mindfulness that you were just talking about really walking ourselves through a fight or flight recovery process? How does all that play a role in managing stress and being stronger than stress?
Speaker 2:Absolutely. And, as you alluded to, everything that I'm doing when it comes to educating people about stress is to give them their power back, especially as women. When you're a professional woman, you're dealing with the home, you're dealing with kids, you're dealing with your career. We have so many stressors that we're dealing with and it could easily feel like I just want to get away, but the escapist fantasies that we have are not necessarily empowering to us. You have a way of taking control of your stress. You may not be able to control your stressors, all those things that come on to us as women, just when you're a working woman and you have kids on top of that, but you can control your stress, and I talk about ways to deal with it on a physiological level. So diet and exercise plays a big role in that.
Speaker 2:I want to remind people nature did not separate our minds from our bodies, so whatever's going to affect your mind, it's going to affect your body and, believe it or not, the stress response actually starts as a physiological response. We just feel it on an emotional and mental level. I can't think straight, my mind is racing, I'm not able to sleep, I feel overwhelmed, I'm so irritable. We notice the mental and emotional signs, but it starts physiologically. So if you can pay attention to what is it that you're eating, are you turning to comfort food or providing your body adequate nutrition? Are you moving? I remind people. Guess what fight and flight have in common? Movement, your body needed to get those chemicals through your circulatory system and out of your body. If they just sit there, they're going to build to toxic levels.
Speaker 2:And then the mindfulness. If you can start with a body, it'll affect the mind. You can start with the mind, it'll affect your body. Mindfulness helps to do the opposite of what the fight or flight system does. Your fight or flight system narrows your focus. It's like a horse with blinders it's designed to make you go. Oh, you know, here I am walking through this beautiful field of flowers and the sky is blue and the beautiful white clouds, and all of a sudden you hear something that sounds like a rattle. Guess what? You're not paying attention to the flowers and the sky and the clouds anymore. Your brain will hold it in on the sound of the sky right now.
Speaker 2:How close is it? Can I get away? Do I need to pick up a rock or something to fight my way out of this? And what mindfulness does? It does the opposite. It allows your brain to go. We're in a relaxed state. Go back to looking at the flowers, go back to enjoying that blue sky and the white clouds and pay attention to what you see and you hear and you taste and you touch and you open up your senses, you open up your awareness. That, automatically, is a sign that you're activating the opposite of the sympathetic nervous system, which is your fight or flight system. You're opening up the parasympathetic nervous system. You are taking control of your body. You're taking control of your stress and these days, there's nothing more important for us women than taking control of our bodies.
Speaker 1:Oh my God, yes, 100%, I agree. Thank you so much for that. It's so important, and one of the things I coach my clients on and I know you do too is they're at work, they're in a stressful situation, they just got an email that they disagree with or that has them upset and I'll say go for a walk, just go walk around the building, go outside, get some. Just go walk around the building, go outside, get some sunshine. Do some deep breathing, do what you need to do to relax your body and to relax your mind and regain that sense of control, and that is so empowering for women.
Speaker 1:I know that you talked about the stressors for professional women and how we are just bombarded with responsibilities and demands and how overwhelming that can be. In our Facebook group that we have a lot of the women in there talk about working in male-dominated workforces where they may be the only woman on the team that they sit on, that they may be one of 10% of the workforce in their company that is women, and how that can make them feel isolated and alone and that adds stress to their day all of those feelings. And so when you talk about all the factors that professional women are dealing with today. I just wanted to point out that one as well. It's a unique stress factor for women in the workplace that a lot of men don't deal with.
Speaker 2:That's right. You're absolutely right, and it's constant. You're constantly monitoring your behavior, these men's behavior. There are different levels of understanding sexual harassment, or just even how they speak to women differently than how they speak to men, and how your voice is being recognized or not, how your opinions are being received. It's just a minute by minute experience that women are constantly having to regulate. And if you're not aware of that because you may just have to push it to the side in order to continue, maybe you're leading the meeting and you're having to get these men to pay attention to what it is you're saying, that's a challenge.
Speaker 2:Minute by minute. You're under this constant scrutiny and threat and having to deflect some of the things that these men tell you that they may or may not even be aware is inappropriate. And how do you respond to that? Yes, it's so myriad, it's crazy. And then, if you're the only woman, you don't even have another woman to talk to yes yeah. And God forbid that other woman isn't as aware of how it's affecting her. And then you have to feel like you're validating your experience. It's so multi-level when you're a professional woman.
Speaker 2:It's insane. And that makes it even more vital to just always have a way to check in with your feelings and just ask yourself where am I feeling tense? How am I breathing right now? Am I breathing shallowly? Because anxiety and stress will do that to you, even the littlest ones. So it may be something that you're like oh, I've been a professional woman for 10 years. I've been dealing with this for 10 years. I'm used to it. Again, we go back to managing.
Speaker 2:Managing is not enough. You don't want to be used to this level of stress. You want to actively reduce it For every moment that you're experiencing this. Oh, did he just say that to me experiencing this? Did he just say that you want to have a counter approach that empowers you, because these things chip away at our self-esteem and our empowerment and leave us bitter and angry, and I can't believe he said something like that. He's speaking up, but he'll turn your power back and go. You know what? I'm not allowing you to control my fight or flight system. I know how to control my own fight or flight system, even though I'd like to punch you in the mouth. Right, I'm not going to. I'm gonna do this. Instead, I'm going to find an excuse to go to the restroom or step outside. Yes, breathe fresh air and enjoy the sunshine. And screw you. You don't have control over what's happening inside my body.
Speaker 1:Exactly 100%. That is gold nuggets right there, dr Sandra, absolutely 100% gold nuggets, and we all needed to hear that today. And I know that this is just the tip of the iceberg of all the valuable information that you share in your book Stronger Than Stress, and this is a wake-up call that we all needed to hear. I am so grateful, dr Sandra. I'm so grateful.
Speaker 1:I know that people are going to want to check out your book, so we have the link in the show notes to where they can look at more information about your book and buy it, and we also want to give people the opportunity to connect with you and ask you questions and get to know you a little bit more if they would like to do that. I understand that the best way to contact you is through your LinkedIn profile, so we have a link to your LinkedIn profile in our show notes so people can just click on that and send you a message or follow you for more great insights and information. I know you also have a free stress assessment that people can take online and we have the link to that in our show notes also. Dr Sandra, can you tell us a little bit more about what do people get when they take your free stress assessment?
Speaker 2:Yes, I really want people to understand that they may think that they've got a handle on stress, without realizing that they're just managing their stress. So I really wanted to increase people's awareness of am I really reducing my stress or did I just get myself to a place where I'm tolerating it Like? This is what my life is and it doesn't have to be that way? I've worked with thousands of people where they thought that it was like, well, this is just the way life is, and I'm like no, it could be so much better than that. I'll just show you how to tweak things a little bit, your stress, and just enjoy life more.
Speaker 2:I wholeheartedly believe that we were all put on this earth to enjoy life. Sometimes we live in different parts of the planet where crap happens and it inhibits your ability to enjoy life. Or even if you live in a great part of the world, like you live in the United States, and you're lucky enough not to have to deal with stuff happening from other countries on our soil but stuff happens all the time anyway. But if you can get control over your own body, which we all have an innate right to, yes, and not make life better, oh my goodness. All right, you want to help everybody? Go for it.
Speaker 1:You want to help everybody. Go for it. Yes, yes, I am so on board with what you are sharing, 100%, absolutely. We can all do that. We can all manage our bodies, take ownership and empower ourselves for our responses and what we do with that and help ourselves lead healthier, more fulfilled and engaging lives.
Speaker 1:I'm so excited about this and, like I said, I know this is just the tip of the iceberg and you've been so generous in everything you've shared today. I hope everyone goes and checks out your book and learns more. It sounds like it's just such a great resource to have at home, whether you read the whole thing cover to cover or if you have it available to you when you want to check something out, when you want to check out something about how to deal with a particular stressor or how a health issue can be exacerbated or affected by your stress responses. It just you know we all wonder things all the time about stress and have questions, and it sounds like it's just a great resource to have on hand when you want to check these things out, because you have shared such a comprehensive encyclopedia of knowledge in your book.
Speaker 2:It is, and I have it in different formats as well. So in the book itself there'll be different sections where there are QR codes. So it'll take you to a YouTube video that I made on that very topic. So if the reading of it is this oh, this section feels a little dry, you can always go to the QR code and watch the video where I talk about that topic as well. So it's supplementary with that.
Speaker 2:And every book comes with a free personal playbook as well. So the book itself is on different ways of reducing stress. Yeah, but I wanted the playbook so that people can personalize the information for themselves. So it'll guide you through the five steps to boosting your physical, mental, emotional and spiritual well-being, so that you can make it personal to yourself, because no two people's personal are going to be the same. So you and your husband, lisa, can host your own playbook and it'll look completely different because you'll be starting at one place. It's physical, mental, emotional and spiritual wellbeing. You'll have different goals and then you can design. How do you bridge that, how do you bridge where you are now to where you want to be, based on what's in the book, so you can pick and choose what's going to fit your life and your husband will probably have something different that he needs to pick and choose from the book in order to get him to his goal.
Speaker 1:I love that. I am so excited. It's such a personalized approach and then it's step-by-step, which makes it easy to follow, which is wonderful. That's what I need, and I know two things A I feel better already. And B, this is not the end of the road. I want the book and I think I recommend everybody get the book. That is wonderful. We are going to wrap up. This has been so exciting. We've got a lot of information for everyone listening in the show notes. If you want to contact Dr Sandra, buy the book, take the free stress assessment and with that I know that you can all start on a journey of not just surviving but thriving, Not just managing stress but being stronger than stress. So with that, thank you everyone for listening and now go melt the glass ceiling.
