You don’t have to be crippled by anxiety | DFS 308

Music. Welcome to Destin for success. I'm your

host, Jennifer Takagi, and today I want to talk about anxiety.

Do you have crippling anxiety? Is it keeping you from doing the

things you want to do, living the life that you want to live?

I'm very fortunate, because I don't struggle with anxiety very

much. There are times when it hits me really hard. I remember

one time at work, my boss came to me and said, Hey, our his

boss, like two up bosses is coming to town tomorrow and

wants to meet with you at 10am Well, I had already scheduled to

be off that morning and was going to be late. I wasn't even

planning on being there till 1030 and he said, Well, that'll

work. You can, you can come in at 1030 and I said, What are we

meeting about? And he said, I don't really know. I said, so

your boss's boss is coming to town to meet with me, but nobody

knows why? Yes, I'm gonna tell you I was feeling an immense

amount of anxiety, like I was up and down all night. I was

stressed out. It was so scary, I didn't know what they wanted.

What they wanted me to do was be a temporary boss in a in a

position, and it all worked out just fine, but that created a

lot of anxiety for me, because there was a history of those

meetings not being in the employee's best interest, and so

it was really scary. And that was like, Whoa, I don't know if

I can do this. And you you've probably heard if you've been

following me for a while. I had a boss for a number of years

that created anxiety just when I could hear her footsteps walking

down the corridor. So I knew what I was in for every day

based on the the cadence of the steps. So I have, I have dealt

with that. I have suffered with that, and it was not fun at all.

But mine works situational. I actually went to the doctor and

I was like, oh, I want Xanax. I hear people just eat Xanax like

candy, and it solves all the problems, and my doctor wouldn't

give me Xanax. So there you go. I guess I didn't do a good

enough job selling it, but he did give me a mild anti anxiety

medicine that truly made all the difference in the world, because

I was calmer and I could think through the situation. When

you're in those situations, when people are just coming at you,

it can be hard to think through what to do next if you don't

have the right skills. And I will be perfectly transparent,

clear right here, I I'm sure I didn't have the skills, I'm sure

I didn't have the skills to be able to handle it. But anxiety,

when you look up a psychiatric definition of anxiety, it's

excessive apprehensiveness about real or perceived threats,

typically leading to avoidance behavior, often to physical

symptoms such as increased heart rate and muscle tension. Again,

mine was situational. If I was not at work, I was pretty good.

I don't think I dwelled on work all the time I might have, but

thank God that's in the rear view mirror that career path.

But I'm talking about this real or perceived threat. I have

friends who can literally list every single possible thing that

could go wrong, and the list is long and it's in depth and it's

specific, and then you wonder, is that stuff gonna happen?

Let's just talk about the news for half a minute. I quit

watching the news years ago, because after the Oklahoma City

bombing, for the first solid year, at least, there was not

one local news report that didn't have something to do with

the bombing. And then when that finally laid up a little bit and

it wasn't so much, then it became all about the trials. And

so that, just like created even more more stress and anxiety,

because what's gonna happen? And so at some point in there, I

don't remember exactly when it was, I quit watching the news.

And my husband and I had had a habit for years. We would watch

the local news the world or nightly news, and then the local

news again, and then 630 whatever. Our show came on then,

but we watched it pretty religiously, and one night, I

was like, Yeah, let's not do that. And we quit. And it's kind

of funny, because sometimes he watches the news without me, and

I'm like, oh, yeah, oh, it's on. Let me go in the other room. And

some people have criticized me about it and said, You need to

know what's going on in the world. And I said, Well, so do

you know what's going on in the world, and what are you doing to

change it? What are you doing to change it? And I heard, I

believe her name is Leslie Osborne. She was a state senator

here in the state of Oklahoma, or maybe she was a state

Congresswoman, I can't remember, but she held public office in

that way, and then she was our labor commissioner. And she

might still be, I don't know, but at a at the Oklahoma State

Safety Council, I was honored to do breakout sessions out two

years in a row. She was the keynote speaker, and she said,

Don't worry about what's going on in Washington. You can't

necessarily affect a change there. You need to worry about

what's going on locally in your community, because if you change

what's going on in your city and your county and your state, that

affects your life much more greatly than what's going on

elsewhere. And I think we are creating a whole group of people

who are anxiety ridden because they watch the news, and I don't

care what channel it is, it doesn't really matter. But when

you have the news on 24 hours a day, because you need to know

what's going on, you're creating more anxiety for yourself. And

the question becomes, is, is that a legitimate anxiety? Is

that going to happen? I had a friend after the Oklahoma City

bombing, said, I'm scared of strangers. I'm scared of moving

vans. And there was a third thing, I can't remember the

third thing she was scared of. And I said, Wait a minute.

Strangers came and helped our friends and colleagues, and

we've both moved multiple times, and we took moving trucks every

time. Like you can't take one event and then project it to all

future things, because that's kind of what anxiety does you're

looking at, what problems can be happening in the future. And

that begs the question, Where is your focus? There's a lot of

research out there. Whether you're airy fairy Wu like me, or

you're very structured and and sound. If you're a Christian,

the Bible talks about where you put your focus. Keep your eyes

on him, and if you're focusing on all the bad things that could

possibly be happening, you're gonna feel more of that anxiety.

Mother Teresa said, Don't ever invite me to an anti war rally

that's negative in every single connotation, our words matter.

She said, Now you invite me to a peace rally, and I'm in so

where's your focus? Are you focusing on all the possible

good things that could happen? Or are you focusing on all the

bad things that could happen. Funny little silly story, one

morning, I woke up and our cat was at our island that has

wheels on it, and he was, like, completely focused. And I ran

and got my husband, and I was like, Oh my gosh, we have a

scorpion in the house, which I'm in Oklahoma. We live near a

pond. We get scorpions occasionally, but it's pretty

rare. So he comes out, and that stupid Scorpion just took off

and went underneath the cabinet. How did it get under there? I

don't know. I They can just squish into little bitty, tiny

spaces. So my husband left and I finished getting ready for work,

and I've got the dog and the cat now staring at this wheel, and

that stupid Scorpion had come back. So I ran Newsflash,

newsflash, if you don't know this, hairspray will kill pretty

much any bug that you don't want to deal with, because it like

freezes them. It freezes your hair, freezes the critters. So I

squeezed I sprayed that Scorpion, and then I can't hear

the sound of killing something, so I have to cover my ears and

scream, la, la, la, la, really loudly.

I put a paper towel over it, and then squish it and threw it

away. And then I. To leave, and there is a little frog in the

garage. And so I got a broom and I brushed it. I was like, You

need to go away little frog, because it was hot, and that

frog was going to die in the heat in the garage. I brushed it

outside, and the stupid thing went under my car. So now I've

got the broom and I'm trying to move it out from under the car,

and it won't go and I thought, well, there's nothing I can do

about you, buddy. I've done everything in my power. I put

the broom up, Shut the garage door, I back up, and I hear a

squish. I ran over the damn frog. So at the time, I don't

think I had a cell phone, or if I did, I didn't have Bluetooth

in my car. And I got to work, and I called my husband, and I

said, Well, it was death day at the Takagi house this morning.

And he goes, What are you talking about? And so I told him

about what had happened, and I said, but thank goodness I got

to work and it's all over. Like, whoosh, whoosh. Wipe it off. I

love to run my hands down my arms and just like wipe off all

that bad mojo, weird feelings, whatever, it's gone. And I did

have a tiny bit of dread about coming home that night, because

there's gonna be a dead frog in the driveway and what. So I am

pulling up to the house, and my driveway is clear. There's

nothing there. And my husband comes in a little bit later, and

I was like, Oh my gosh, did you see this? I guess the birds came

and and took care of that frog, and it's gone. And he goes, No,

I came home and hosed off the driveway because I knew it was

going to upset you to come home, so yeah, bonus points for Bill

Takagi, because he got the dead frog off the driveway. I could

have spiraled that day about all the bad things that could

happen, but I made a choice. I made a conscious decision, that

that was over and done. Jack Canfield talks about it a lot in

his book, The Success Principles and in that training that I went

through, which was amazing. And he talks about, when you wake up

in the morning and stub your toe, you can have the thought

process of, Oh, thank goodness that's over. I don't have to

worry about that again today. My one bad thing's over. Or you can

start in and create your own Sunday night melodrama. You

could be your own lifetime movie. Oh, I stubbed my toe and

then I cut myself shaving, whether it's a leg or a face. I

kept myself shaving, and then I was out of hairspray because I

used it yesterday to kill the scorpion, and then, and then I

didn't have anything to take for lunch, and then I spilled my

coffee, thank god on her and coffee, because I've never had

to do that. And you can just create your own day of horror,

and it creates anxiety, because you're creating everything

that's happening as it happens, where you focus your time and

attention matters, and it matters a lot. So where's your

focus? If you're struggling with anxiety, what are you focusing

on? Is it something so far in the future that you have no

control over, or are you focusing on doing what you can

do really well right now? I believe it's Mary Barr is the

CEO of GM, and she was asked when you started GM, did you

know that you wanted to work your way up and be the CEO? And

she said, Oh, absolutely not. My focus was doing the job that I

had to the best of my ability. And people took notice. You

don't have to jump up and down and show everybody you're there.

They see you're there by consistency, by doing a good

job, and by focusing on the here and now, what you're doing right

now. So my question for you to ponder as I close this out is,

what would your life look like without the anxiety? What would

your life look like if you assumed the best, the best out

of yourself, the best out of your employees, the best out of

your spouse, the best out of your kids, the best out of the

person at the grocery store that checked you out. What if you

just expected the best? My friend told me a story recently

that Esther Hicks, who's a total woo person, if you don't know

her, and Abraham Hicks is how she channels and shares magical,

mystical, wonderful. Uh, stories and information and guidance.

And she had a very expensive car. I don't know if it was a

royal Rolls Royce. That's easy for me to say Rolls Royce or

another kind, but it was a very expensive car. And they drove up

to park or and they were going to valet the car. And as they

got out the friend with her said, Oh my gosh. Are you really

going to trust this, you know, $200,000 car, whatever it was to

the valet. Don't you think they're going to, you know,

scratch it up or bump a another door or something? And she said,

Oh, I just assume that anybody who sees this car is going to

appreciate it enough to treat it as well as I do. What I'm going

to assume they're going to treat it as well as I do, versus

somebody's going to scratch my car. This is going to be a

problem. Are you assuming the best, assuming the worst? Where

is your focus? What if you assume the best out of people?

Yes, there are times when it's not going to work out. Yeah, I

get it blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You could make up your own

story about that. My story is things work out for me. I go to

Toby Keith's before almost every single Oklahoma City NBA home

basketball game. And in all the years I've been going since

like, 2009 2010 I can't remember. Maybe it was 2011 but

a long time now, because 2024 is when I'm recording this, I bet

there aren't five times and there are 40 games a year, I bet

there aren't five times that I didn't get to park right in

front of Toby Keith's and then walk to the game at work, we'd

all go to lunch. And if we ever went out to lunch, everybody

wanted to ride in my car. Why? Because I just assume I'm going

to get a great parking spot, and I typically do, there are rare

occasions I just chalk that up to somebody else needed it more

than I did that day, or I needed to get a few steps in so you

have the choice on how much anxiety you experience and if

you want to hang on to it, or if you want to let it go, I have a

free gift for you. I keep telling you about it that you

need to get it and you need to implement it. 12 minute

gift.com. I'm Jennifer Takagi. I look forward to connecting with

you soon. You.